The Memory Box
by DocMarten2525
Summary: Years have passed since the fall of the Institute and a retired Nick Valentine is feeling not only his age, but a feeling of irrelevancy in a changing world. But when Ellie's grand-daughter is kidnapped, he must strap on his shoulder holster and venture beyond the borders of the Commonwealth, where he will finally confront the ghosts of his long-forgotten past.
1. Chapter 1

[Author's Note: This story takes place after the events recounted in "A Beautiful Heart" and the game itself, Fallout 4, but before "The Last Word" – a companion piece to "Ghosts", which are chronologically the last and second last in my Fallout 4 series. Readers who have not yet read those stories are cautioned that they may contain spoilers for this one, and that I have taken liberties with canon.

While this work will stand alone, it builds on the relationship between Ellie and Nick developed in ABH and contains references to events from that story. Warning for violence, sexual content, and horror. This is a work of adult fiction intended for an adult audience, and some may find elements of it disturbing.]

-OOO-

Some days, Nick felt older than others.

The winter had been long and cold, and even wetter than usual for Boston, with storms gusting in off the ocean, heavy with snow and rain. The cold thickened the lubricating fluid in Nick's knee joints, and the constant damp messed with his capacitors, translating as a stiffness and a dull ache that made movement slow and painful. He'd been down to the market to see Antonio about it this morning. A shot of gun oil in his joints usually helped him get past the worst of it. But the bearings themselves were starting to break down, and with the Institute a distant memory, spare parts for aging synths were nowadays nearly impossible to find.

Nick missed Antonio's father, who'd been a genius with a lathe and a soldering iron. But Arturo was gone, carried off like so many others when the Great 'Flu of '98 came roaring down the eastern seaboard. Hard to believe that had been almost 30 years ago, or that little Antonio now had adult children of his own.

At least the weather had finally turned. The last couple days had been warm and spring-like. He doubted it would hold, but it was nice while it lasted.

Nick turned his attention back to the typewriter in front of him, squinting as the letters on the page blurred in and out. The motors behind his eyes whirred back and forth, hunting unsuccessfully for focus. Finally he sighed and reached for his reading glasses. Adjusting them on his nose, he read over what he had written. He grimaced, then back-spaced over several lines of type and x'ed them out. He tried again, laboriously pecking at the keyboard with two fingers.

" _Would he have killed us?"_ he wrote, _"If we'd stood our ground and dared him to do his worst? I don't know. Hancock always seemed to me like a decent guy, for a ghoul. But among the criminal class you are either predator or prey, and once the word gets out you're prey, the predators start lining up. It was pretty clear Bobbi No Nose had her own reasons for organizing that raid on Hancock's warehouse, ones she never got around to sharing with the rest of us until it was too late. So when he gave us the choice of walk away or die, we walked. I'm not proud of myself for leaving Bobbi behind. But self-preservation is a powerful motivator."_

Nick leaned back in his chair. "Ellie, can you get me the Hancock file?" He twisted his head around to look at her desk. It was empty, of course. He shook his head at himself. It had been years since Ellie last sat there. Nowadays it was her youngest grand-daughter, Lily, who came in for a couple hours every day after school. Or at least, that was the arrangement. There always seemed to be something getting in the way, and even when she was there her heart wasn't really in it. Plus she couldn't type worth a damn. Of course, she was young yet, and he was remarkably fond of her. But he missed Ellie.

Nick looked back at his memoir and added: _"Besides, she treated her girls like slaves. Wore them out, used them up, and threw them away. So whatever happened to her, probably it was what she deserved. And good riddance."_

He ripped the page out of the typewriter and added it to the pile on the desk. Probably he'd have to re-write that last sentence, even if it was the truth. He growled, remembering Ellie's mother trying to barter her ten-year-old daughter for a fix. On second thought, maybe he'd leave it in there. Besides, who was going to see this besides him? And Ellie, of course. He'd been reading bits of it to her when he went up to visit.

Mostly it was a way to pass the time. Things were a lot slower in the private detective biz than they'd once been. Nick blamed Danny Sullivan for that, for cleaning up Diamond City Security and turning it into a real police force instead of a gang of armed thugs. Hell, they even had their own detectives now – Nick had trained most of them – and there was a system of courts and judges to weed the innocent from the guilty. Danny was long gone, but the current Chief was almost as good. Competence gets to be a habit, after a while.

The Commonwealth itself was a changed place. There had been a day when people's lives here played out against the rattle of distant gunfire, like background music coming from a radio. But peace had come, finally. A person could walk from Sanctuary Hills all the way down to Quincy and never see anything more threatening than a farm dog barking from the other side of a fence.

It had been a long time coming.

A thought interrupted Nick's reverie and he fed another sheet into the typewriter.

" _Funny, how much the violence subsided when the Institute fell. It makes you wonder if the unrelenting chaos of those days wasn't deliberately engineered. It wouldn't take much – a nudge here or a poke there – to keep the fires of anarchy burning. And the Institute had agents everywhere, including nearly all the traders, albeit unwittingly so, mostly._

 _So much of it was fed by easy access to weapons. Where did they all come from? Not the homemade stuff – pipe pistols and the like – but the rest of it. And the endless supply of ammunition and power cells? And all those explosives? "Salvage" they'll tell you – army stockpiles, supplies from abandoned Vaults and the leftovers from a society so heavily-armed that school teachers kept hand grenades in their desk drawers. But after so many years? Not likely. Nor could even the best of the Commonwealth's craftsmen have ever turned out one perfectly-machined automatic rifle after another, exactly sized to fit standard shells. That kind of mass-produced manufacturing takes machinery and facilities, and there isn't anyone around here doing that kind of work. Plus it takes money, and lots of it. All this goes double for the high tech stuff – lasers and fusion cells and the like. I haven't seen a working laser rifle in 40 years._

 _We'll never know now for sure who was responsible. When the Institute blew, all its records went with it. But after it was gone, things were different. There is a reason why we celebrate Independence Day not on July 4, the birthday of the old United States of America, but on April 17, the day the Institute was destroyed._

He missed it some days, in the way of old men in every era who come to look back on their younger, wilder selves with a mixture of nostalgia and relief. But where once the days blazed with fire, now they simply drifted by, leaving nothing behind to mark their passing. Maybe that was why he stuck so doggedly to his typewriter: because it gave solid form to the events of those days and the people who made them happen. Gone now, mostly, living only in his memory. And now, on these pages.

Besides, it wasn't like he didn't have a lot of time. Hell, he'd even started taking divorce cases.

Nick stared at the page, drumming his fingers on the desk. It was well past suppertime by now. He had to get out. Anything had to be better than sitting around here. He climbed stiffly to his feet and jammed his hat on his head. As an afterthought he took his .45 out of the drawer and checked the load, then slipped it into his shoulder holster. Not much chance a gunfight was going to break out, but a guy could hope.

"I'm going out," he said to the empty desk as he went by.

-OOO-

It was Friday night, and the Dugout was busy. He'd thought about heading up to the Colonial instead where it'd be less rowdy. But the Dugout was livelier and he'd had enough quiet contemplation for one day. The band was just finishing off a set when he walked in, and there was laughter coming from a big group by the bar. Lily was there, on the arm of a tall, young man, a few years older than her, with smiling eyes and teeth that gleamed in a confident smile. She was leaning back against him and smiling up into his face, and he had his arm around her waist, his hand sliding up underneath the front of her shirt. She had a cowboy hat on - it must have been his – and she was laughing as she slapped at his hand. It moved, but not very far, and he only grinned more widely. His friends were egging him on, and everyone seemed in grand spirits. There were a couple boys in the group Nick recognized, but the others were strangers. He frowned a little and caught her eye, shooting her a look of disapproval. She looked at him briefly then looked away.

"Nick, my friend!" a huge voice roared from across the room as he worked his way toward the bar. "You're just in time to help me settle some of these ruffians down." Boris Bobrov grinned at him, planting his ham like fists on the bar top. He was a big, heavily-muscled man in his late 40s, standing well over six feet, with black hair and a thick black beard, now heavily streaked with grey.

Nick laughed as he approached. "I can't imagine you needing my help," he said. Someone obligingly vacated a stool for him and he sat down on it, nodding his thanks and wincing slightly at a sudden stiffness in his hips. "How about I watch the bar while you settle the ruffians?"

"Probably that is best," Bobrov answered. "I only said that because you are my favourite uncle and I want to make you feel welcome."

"You can make me feel welcome by pouring me a whiskey and leaving the bottle," Nick said. "And I'm not your uncle. Unless you've got some mechanical parts you never told anyone about."

"Ha! That's good. But Mama, she loved you, and so to me, you will always be my Uncle Nick. You know, the strange one we don't talk about very much! But we love him all the same."

"Well, it's good to be loved." Nick accepted the bottle and a glass. He pushed a handful of caps across the bar and shook a pair of cigarettes out of his pack, passed one to Boris and lit up himself, the smoke coiling upward to join the haze already filling the room.

Boris stayed a few minutes, smoking and making idle conversation before excusing himself to go look after customers. Nick drained his glass and re-filled it. Mostly he drank for appearances. Alcohol didn't normally hit him the way did humans. His converters ate it up like they did any other organic, turning it into fuel for the tiny fusion furnace in his gut. Which was too bad. There had been many times over the years he'd wished he could have gone on a bender. Lately, though, he found himself feeling lightheaded after a few drinks. An imbalance in his main power delivery systems, probably. He could head down to Antonio's and get it adjusted. Or he could leave it alone. It made drinking a lot more fun.

He sat quietly, drinking steadily and feeling himself drift away. The noise ebbed and flowed: music and laughter, voices raised in drunken conversation, all fading into the background. Memories unwound around him. An afternoon on someone's sailboat, sunlight reflecting off the water, a pretty girl leaning her head on his shoulder in that long-vanished time before the War. Ellie, squealing with delight at a brand new, still-in-plastic, crossword puzzle book. Her favourite obsession. A lucky find, he said, rather than telling her how much he'd paid the collector for it. The Bobrovs – Vadim and Yefim, Boris' uncles – the look on their faces the day he'd walked in with their long-lost sister and her young son in tow. Ellie, learning to read, trying hard to catch up to the children her own age. Ellie, barely in her teens, getting ready for a date, half in tears because her hair wouldn't stay flat. And then, taking her arm to walk her down the aisle to where her fiancé waited and wondering how the half-wild waif he'd once rescued had become the tall, graceful woman beside him.

"Hi, Boss!" a voice in his ear interrupted his reverie. Lily draped herself over his shoulder. Her eyes were bright and her face was flushed, and she seemed to be having a slight problem with her consonants.

"Hi, Lily," he answered, patting her hand. "Missed you at the office today."

"I know," she said straightening up a little unsteadily. "I'm sorry, Uncle Nick. I was all caught up and there just didn't seem like much to do."

"Gee, sorry about that. I'll see if I can find more work for you next time."

"Maybe if you got out once in a while, had a few adventures, I'd have some filing to keep me busy. Plus, then I wouldn't have to listen to you swear at the typewriter all the time." She'd lost the cowboy hat from before, so now she snatched Nick's battered fedora off and perched it on her own head, tilting the brim down and grinning at him from underneath it. He cracked a smile in spite of his mood. Ellie's grand-daughters had all gotten blonde hair from somewhere, but Lily was the only one with her grandmother's eyes.

He retrieved his hat and set it back on his head. "I'm too old for adventures," he said. "Just putting up with you kids is adventure enough for me. Besides, it's harder to find adventures in the Commonwealth these days. Things are a lot quieter now."

Lily made a face. "A lot more boring, you mean. Did you see the paper? There's a new show opening at the Pickman Gallery this week, and – brace yourself, Uncle – people are worried it will conflict with the premiere of 'My Fair Lady' at the Combat Zone. Oh. My. God. I can't stand the excitement."

Nick grunted. "Happens I did see that. So what? It's a sign of prosperity. Means people aren't scrabbling just to survive anymore."

She rolled her eyes. "But Pickman? Didn't he dissect people while they were still alive then use their blood for his paintings? And didn't they fight to the death at the Combat Zone?"

"Yes, he did and they did. Raiders, mostly, which to be honest I never could get too upset about. Good riddance to the bunch of them. Pickman included." Nick took another drink and lit a cigarette.

Lily stomped her foot. "Oh, God, Uncle Nick, will you listen to yourself? How can you stand it? Back in the day, there were real problems. Feral ghouls everywhere, and raiders, and evil robots – sorry, Uncle, you know what I mean – and the Institute always waiting to pounce. It's like the world was teetering on the thin edge of disaster all the time. People like you and Grandma really made a difference in the world. Now, the biggest thing we have to worry about is if the coach to Quincy is on time."

"Good," Nick said morosely. "The fact you can say that means we really did make a difference. You should be thanking me instead of complaining about it."

"I do. Really I do. It's just that…" she gestured helplessly. "Everything is so civilized, now. Boring. I wish it was the way it used to be."

"Boring?" Something inside Nick snapped and he slapped his hand down angrily on the bar, knocking his half-empty bottle over. Whiskey slopped out onto the countertop. "Boring?" he repeated. His voice rose and he could feel his fight-or-flight systems begin to kick in. The world around him slowed down a little. "You're damned right it's boring. Boring enough that you can spend your nights hanging out here getting drunk with your pretty-boy friends instead of scavenging in the ruins for your next meal. Is that boring enough for you? Too many good people died making it that way for you to stand there and complain about it. If you really want excitement, there's lots left in the world. All you have to do is go look for it. Me, I'm going to sit right here and enjoy all the boredom. I've earned it."

Lily's eyes blazed and her cheeks burned bright red. "So you spend your days cooped up in that stupid office typing your stupid memoirs no one's ever going to read." She sneered at him, stung by his angry words. "The great Nick Valentine."

Nick lurched to his feet, his eyes blazing. "How dare you?"

She took a step back, a look of horror in her eyes at the realization of what she'd said. "Uncle, I'm sorry –"

"What's going on here?" a new voice demanded. "Is this guy bothering you, Lil?" Lily's companion from earlier forced his way between them. He was tall, wide across the shoulders with long hair gathered into a pony-tail at the back and the beginnings of a downy beard spreading across his cheeks and chin. His arm badge identified him as a Minuteman, one of that quasi-military group tasked with protecting the outlying farming communities in the Commonwealth.

"No, Garrick, I…"

"Mind your own business, son," Nick said brusquely, beginning to turn back to the bar.

The Minuteman growled, jabbing a finger at his arm badge. "You see this patch, old man? This patch says I'll mind whatever business I decide to mind." He grabbed Nick by the shoulder and spun him around. His jaw dropped as he got a good look at Nick for the first time.

"What the… what the hell?" he stuttered, stepping back. "What the hell are you?"

"Garrick, don't be stupid," Lily said, her eyes wide.

He shook her off. "It's a … a robot. A _synth_. A fucking synth. All dressed up in clothes and pretending to be human. Who do you think you are, coming in here, talking sass to your betters?" He grabbed Nick by the front of his coat with one hand, hauling him off his feet while fumbling at the holster on his hip for the automatic that rode there. "I'll show you what we do to things like you where I come from."

Lily screamed, a high, piercing shriek that cut through the hubbub in the bar. In one lightning move Nick brought his hand up – the metal hand, the one with all the skin stripped off – breaking the Minuteman's grip and wrenching his head back by the ponytail while drawing the revolver from inside his coat with the other. The man's jaw dropped open and Nick jammed the barrel up hard against the roof of his mouth and thumbed back the hammer.

Garrick froze. Then swallowed, carefully. Nick glowered. The bar was silent.

"Hey now… hey!" There was the sound of the bar hatch slamming open, and Boris Bobrov's booming voice. "What the hell? I go into the back for two minutes and there's a gunfight? Get out of my way, you." There was a noise like a scuffle, and then a thud and the sound of a body slumping to the floor. Boris' voice continued. "The rest of you put your guns away unless you want to go for a nap like your friend."

Nick spared a glance across the room to where Bobrov stood scowling at the small group of young Minutemen – recruits, Nick now realized – in the far corner. "I talk to your sergeant," the bartender was saying, "you'll spend your enlistment slopping out pig barns. And you, Howie Garcia… Drunk and stupid I expect from out-of-town hicks like these, but you're from around here. You want I should tell your mother? You're not so big she won't paddle your behind for you."

He stumped across the room, a short, weighted club in one hand. "Nick Valentine, I would appreciate you didn't kill him. He still has caps in his pocket he hasn't spent. Also I just washed the floor right where you're standing from the last guy got killed in here."

"A little lesson in manners is all," Nick said.

"Just make sure it doesn't involve getting blood on my floor."

The Minuteman rolled his eyes in Boris' direction, then back to Nick.

The detective smiled dourly up at him. "Look, kid," he said, "I can see you're young. You ever want to get old, there's a couple of things you should know. First off, don't fight unless you have to. Second, you want to impress a girl, try flowers. Finally, I ever see you groping my favourite niece again, I'll rip your arm off and make you eat it. She's in high school. Last thing needs is a lowlife like you trying to get in her pants."

Nick drew the man's sidearm and tossed it to Boris, who emptied the magazine and gave it back. He released him then uncocked his revolver and holstered it before handing back the automatic. "Nice piece," he added. "Needs oiling. You want to stay alive on the frontier, take better care of your gear. Now beat it." He pushed him away.

Garrick beat it, along with his friends carrying their unconscious comrade between them. There were some dirty looks thrown, but no other trouble.

After they left, Lily came up to him. "Uncle Nick, I'm sorry," she said contritely. "I didn't mean any of it the way it sounded. Please don't be mad at me."

Nick laughed. "You are your mother's daughter," he said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, too. I'm not sure where that came from. Guess I'm getting grumpy in my old age."

"You're not old!"

"Yes, I am." He sighed. "Maybe it's my fault, telling you kids all those stories when you were little. The truth is, the world back then was a hard, dirty place. We paid a high price, all of us, trying to clean it up a little, maybe make it safe for you to grow up in." He looked over his shoulder at the puddle of whiskey on the bar. "And now look what I've done. Perfectly good whiskey, wasted."

"Well, I'm sorry, anyway. And for how he acted, the big jerk. As if I couldn't take care of myself." She looked sharply at Nick as if about to say more. Then her expression brightened. "Am I really your favourite?"

"Sure," he nodded. "If I had a favourite. Now get on home. Say 'hi' to your mother for me. And tell your grandmother I'm going to come see her again tomorrow. How's she feeling, by the way?"

"I meant to tell you! She was up yesterday for a little while, and today she ate a real breakfast. We sat outside in the courtyard and she was talking about getting the garden in and having Dad put up some new flowerpots. Just like her old self. Maybe she's turned a corner. I hope so. I miss my Nan the way she used to be."

"That's great news," Nick said. "I'll come by tomorrow morning sometime, after she gets up. Make sure you tell her. Now, look – you better get moving. Your mother finds you in here, she'll tan both our hides."

"Oh, Uncle. I'm almost eighteen, which means legally I'm almost an adult."

"That's right. But until then you're legally not an adult. Now scat."

"Okay Mr. Bossy, I'll go. But not because you told me to! I just want to see how Grandma's doing." She grinned impishly and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then skipped out, waving to Boris as she went by.

Howie Garcia had stayed behind when the other recruits left, and now he came over. He had his Minuteman armband off and was twisting it in his hands. "I'm sorry, Mr. Valentine," he said, his eyes downcast. "I didn't mean for that to happen, before. Garrick's okay. He just likes to show off."

Nick grunted. "Well, either the Minutemen will beat it out of him or someone else will. I saw the recruiters set up in the market this morning," he added. "Does your mother know you signed up?"

The boy looked even more miserable. "No, I haven't told her yet. I'm afraid of what she'll say. It's not set in stone, anyway. We march north tomorrow, but Sarge said anyone who doesn't show up doesn't go, that's all. I thought it would be pretty cool, defending the Commonwealth and all. But after what happened here, maybe they're not my kind of people."

Nick smiled. "Oh, those boys'll all shake out just fine. You'll see. Even your pal, Garrick. The Minutemen are a good outfit. They need smart guys like you up there, keeping the rest of us safe. Just make sure to keep your head down and your ears open."

"I will."

"Good. You might want to head home, though, and tell your mother. And keep an eye out for Lily on your way, too, if you don't mind."

Nick stayed, drinking whiskey while the bar cleared out. Finally, it was just him. Boris brought out another bottle and a clean glass and sat down beside him. They smoked together for a while and finally Nick said:

"She's right, you know. The Commonwealth _is_ boring, compared to what it used to be. It feels like a spark has gone out of the world."

"Good. Safer that way. Better for business."

Nick laughed. "Boris, I feel old. I feel creaky. Most days I feel useless, too. Like the world has passed me by. So I spend my days sitting in the office writing up all my old case files and slowly going to pot." He finished his glass and poured another drink for both of them.

Boris drank. "Nick, I have known you since before I can remember. In all that time, you have always been old and creaky. But never useless. I could name a hundred people in Diamond City alone who are in your debt, me included. Without you, Mama and I would never have escaped the bad place, would never have come here. Mama lived a long, happy life, surrounded by people who loved her. All because of you. That's why I always give you the good whiskey when you come in."

"Very kind of you to say." Nick lit up another cigarette and passed one to Boris. "Still, it would be nice to go out with a bang."

"You talk as if you're going to die," Boris said. "Probably you'll outlive me."

"Maybe that's the problem," Nick said. "Maybe I've outlived too many people already."

-OOO-

Nick was at his desk again the next morning. He was going through his stack of cold cases. Some of them went back nearly fifty years. Kidnappings and murders, mostly. Unsolvable now, for the most part. He pulled out a folder at random. "The Mechanist Murders", it said in Ellie's neat script. A series of seemingly disconnected, gangland-style slayings apparently perpetrated by robots. But Nick had been able to prove the victims were all connected to the jet trade, and he figured someone – Donny Marowski was his guess, but he'd never been able to prove it – was whittling down the competition. Didn't matter now, anyway. Marowski was long gone and his organization with him, along with most of the other mafia-style Triggermen gangs. And good riddance to them, too.

He shoved the folder back into the drawer and closed it. The sun was out this morning and the day was warming up a little. His knees felt a little looser today. Might be a good day to get out of DC, go for a walk and relive a few old memories. Hell, he could even take in the show at the Pickman. Might help fill in some details for his memoirs, too. At the very least, he wouldn't have to spend the day fighting with his typewriter.

Just then the door banged open. It was Lily. She was crying.

Nick started out of his chair. "What on earth, child?"

"Uncle Nick, you have to come. It's Grandma. She won't wake up."

Nick swore and grabbed his hat. Outside, the narrow, crooked streets were full of people enjoying the spring sunshine. He took Lily's hand and pushed his way through the crowds, his haste making him rude.

"Did you call Doc Tandy?" he called over his shoulder. She nodded, blinking back tears. "Good." He led them around a slow moving farm cart, piled high with produce. "I thought you said she was feeling better."

"She was!"

They crossed a small plaza where a flower vendor was hawking her wares and started up a wide staircase. Ellie lived with her daughter's family in a house overlooking what would have once been left field, back when Diamond City was Fenway Park, the home of baseball in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. Not so long ago, this area had been gardens and greenhouses. But it was all built up now, and new staircases snaked their way up the stands into new neighbourhoods. Nowadays, the city imported the food needed to support its growing population.

Tandy was already in with Ellie by the time Nick arrived. The family was gathered around the front room, waiting.

"Nick, I'm so glad you're here." Ellie's daughter, Annie, greeted him, standing up to put her arms around him. He hugged her, feeling the wetness on her cheeks. She was in her early 40s and dark-haired, like her mother. Jack, her husband, sat on the couch with Lily's older sisters, Harper and Jeannie.

"What's going on?" Nick said, letting Annie go and nodding toward the closed bedroom door. "Lily said she was feeling better?"

Annie sniffed back tears. "She was. I was so worried about her after this winter, but then the sun finally came out and she just perked right up. We had a wonderful day. Nick, I should have called you. I said we should, and she said no, we'd come over to the office today. And then - " her voice caught, "then I went in this morning and she wouldn't wake up."

Nick sat with them on the couch, listening to them talk. Ellie had been sick most of the winter. Cancer, of course. Ubiquitous, nearly inevitable, if you lived long enough. Too much radiation – in the soil, in the water, in the air, even. There were treatments – she'd had both breasts removed a few years before – but they didn't do much more than delay the inevitable. Funny, Nick thought. The doctors could re-attach a limb, re-grow tissue, fix a bullet hole, but they were helpless when the body's cells suddenly began growing out of control.

He tried to remember how old Ellie was. Almost 70, he thought. A very respectable age in the Commonwealth. It didn't make it any easier.

Tandy came out, looking sombre. He was a young man, with thinning, sandy-coloured hair and grey eyes. A wash of freckles sprayed across his nose, adding to his youthful appearance. He nodded at Nick. "She's awake," he said. "I gave her a shot to bring her out of it. She wants to talk to you all."

The family filed into her room, Annie holding tightly to Jack's hand. Tandy motioned to Nick to stay behind.

"What's going on, Doc?"

The doctor shook his head. "It's not good, Nick. Her body's starting to shut down. The cancer's back, and it's everywhere. And the pain is… very bad. She has a few days now. Maybe less."

"I thought she'd had some kind of remission? The way they were talking, she was up and around the last little while..." Nick stopped, then closed his eyes. "She used stimpacks on herself," he said, realizing. "Must've had some squirreled away, just waiting for the weather to break. Probably only needed a couple, just enough to give her some energy."

Tandy nodded. "That's my guess."

Nick laughed without humour. "Not a bad exchange, really. Traded a few weeks of dying slowly in bed for a day with her family. I'd do the same, come to think of it."

The girls were crying in each other's arms when they came out of the room. Annie was holding on to Jack. He had the look of a man trying hard to be strong for the sake of others and only partly succeeding.

"Nick," he said. "She's asking for you."

-OOO-

Ellie lay on the bed, propped up on the pillows with the covers pulled up closely around her, as if by wrapping her tight they could keep the life inside from escaping. She was thin and frail, her skin like paper, almost translucent in the sunlight that streamed into the room. Her eyes were closed, and a halo of white hair surrounded her face against the pillow.

The walls were covered in photographs, carefully framed and mounted. Ellie sitting at her desk at the detective agency, frowning in concentration as she worked at a crossword puzzle. Her and Eddie on their wedding day. The two of them at the seashore somewhere, baby Annie lying on the blanket between them. Nick doing his best Humphrey Bogart, leaning against a wall with his collar turned up and the brim of his hat down low. Annie as a toddler, sitting on Nick's knee and looking gravely up at him. All three of the grandchildren dressed in costumes for a school play. Keepsakes and knickknacks lined the shelves, mementoes of years gone by all neatly arranged. Her little .38 was even there, the one Nick had given her so many years ago, on a stand on the dresser. It had been cleaned recently and gleamed with fresh oil, and there was a box of shells beside it.

She opened her eyes as he sat down in the chair beside the bed. "I'm glad you're here," she said.

"Came as soon as I heard. How is it?"

"Bad." She coughed weakly. "Nick, I'm not getting through this one."

"Ellie, don't talk nonsense."

"It's okay," she said. "We knew this day would come. Happens to everyone, sooner or later."

Nick shook his head stiffly. "No, don't talk that way. You know I can't manage the office by myself. I've just been mooching around this last little while, waiting for you to get back to work so we can get those damned memoirs finished."

"Lily will help you with them."

"Huh. She's a smart girl, but she's mostly interested in boys, at the moment. Reminds me of her grandmother a little bit that way." He grinned at Ellie, then his face fell. "What am I going to do without you?" he said, his voice thick with misery.

Ellie laughed, then grimaced at the pain. "Carry on, I guess, like people always do." She touched his hand. "Nick…There's something I need."

"Of course. Anything."

She motioned toward the drawer in the little bedside table. He opened it. There was a syringe inside.

He looked at her and shook his head. "Ellie, I can't. "

"I had Doc Tandy bring it," she said, as if she hadn't heard him. "Some time ago. Such a nice young man. I think he's rather fond of Jeannie. It would be nice to have a doctor in the family." She trailed off. Nick waited. After a while, she said: "Nick, I meant to come see you yesterday. But we were having such a wonderful time, and I thought I'd have one more day and that I would be able to come down to the office and spend all of it just with you. But it turns out I didn't have one more day. I'm sorry." She turned her head painfully toward him. "It hurts everywhere, Nick. And it's going to get worse. Just this one last thing I need you to do for me. I won't ask you for anything again after that, I promise." She laughed at her own joke, but the laugh turned into a cough that left her curled in agony, a thin thread of saliva hanging from the corner of her mouth. "Please, Nick," she finally whispered.

He picked up the syringe. "Annie, and the children?"

"We've said our good-byes. They'll be fine. Jack's a good man, and they have you to look after them, too. So now there's no good-byes left to say. Except you and me."

"I'll miss you, Ellie."

"I won't go far. The wind in the leaves. The sunlight on your face… that will be me. Just close your eyes and I'll be there. I promise."

Nick turned back the covers and smoothed the skin on the inside of her elbow, looking for a vein. He found it, uncapped the syringe and squeezed out a bead of fluid from the tip. He looked at her. She nodded and closed her eyes. She winced a little as the needle slipped under the skin, then opened her eyes and looked steadily into his. He looked back at her, and their gazes locked as he pushed down on the plunger. When the syringe was empty, he eased it out and set it aside. He took her hand in his and waited.

"He loved me," she said suddenly. "Eddie loved me with all his heart. I was lucky to have him." She was breathing slow and shallow, the air whistling in and out of her lungs. Nick could feel the pulse slowing in her wrist.

Her eyelids started to droop. Then they opened again, one last time. "But he wasn't you."

Nick sat still for a very long time. Once, someone looked into the room, then retreated. Somewhere, a clock ticked. Finally, he reached out and closed her eyes then folded the blanket up over her face.

-OOO-


	2. Chapter 2

The Valentine Detective Agency re-opened a few days after the funeral. Lily eventually came back to work, but only here and there. Her heart wasn't in it. Neither was Nick's. Mostly he stayed at his desk. Sometimes he picked away at his memoirs, but it was hard to stay focussed. There had been a steady stream of visitors at first, leaving flowers and cards and other tokens. Ellie had been well-loved and for her sake Nick was polite. He appreciated they were trying to be kind, but he wished they would go away. After a while they did. After that, it was mostly just him, sitting in the semi-gloom staring at nothing.

One day a couple weeks later he received a different kind of visitor. He was at his typewriter, trying to force himself to take up where he'd left off. Lily was at her desk, studying.

"It's open," he called, hearing the knock. The door swung wide and a dark figure stood outlined in the light streaming in from outside: a man dressed in a long black trench coat, belted at the front. He was wearing dark glasses and a black fedora, with a silver scarf tied around his neck and tucked into his coat front, and he wore a Minuteman armband. His clothing was travel-stained and his face behind the dark glasses looked worn and tired.

Nick smiled, his first one in weeks. "Hello, Nate," he said, getting up.

The stranger smiled. "Mind if I come in?" Without waiting for an answer he stepped through the door, undoing his coat and throwing it over the back of a chair, and balancing his hat and sunglasses precariously on top. The man revealed was of medium height and build, with close-cropped hair and a neatly trimmed beard, both mostly grey with touches of red, hinting at the hair colour of his youth. His face was old and scarred, his long years marked by the deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. But his eyes were blue and bright, and he had an easy smile.

The two men shook hands. "It's good to see you, Nick," Nate said.

"You, too." Nick nodded at where Lily sat at her desk. "You remember Lily, of course. Annie's youngest. Lily, do you remember Nate? General Howard, I should say, of the Minutemen?"

Nate stepped forward. "How do you do?" he said, taking her hand. "I'm sure you wouldn't, since you were quite young when we last met. But I remember you very well. You bit me at the time. Quite enthusiastically, as I recall."

Lily stood tongue-tied, blushing furiously. "I'm sorry," she finally blurted out. "I don't remember. Mama says I bit a lot of people when I was little. But I don't anymore, really."

"You can't imagine how relieved I am to hear that. And I'm very sorry to hear about your grandmother." He turned back to Nick. "You too," he said. "I know it must have been hard on everyone. And I feel terrible about missing the funeral. My adjutant told me they sent an honour guard up from the Castle. But that's not the same thing as me being there."

"It's okay." Nick took a bottle and glasses out of his desk drawer. "I sent a message, but they said you were out of touch." He poured drinks, holding one out.

"A long way out of touch," Nate agreed, taking the glass. "Some stuff going on past the frontier. But I came as soon as I could."

"Ellie would have understood."

"I know she would have." He sighed and his shoulders sagged a little. "I hate being old. I hate watching old friends slip away, one by one."

"You're telling me."

Nate made a face. "Sorry Nick. I didn't mean to make this about me."

"No, it's okay. You're not saying anything I haven't already thought. For what it's worth, it wasn't unexpected. And she'd made her peace with it." He raised his glass. "To Ellie." Nate echoed the toast and they drank.

"How long are you in town for?" Nick said. "I'm going up to the house for supper tonight. Why don't you come with me? Annie would love to see you. I'll send Lily ahead to let her know. Maybe we can go down to the Dugout after."

"I can't, sorry. I'm on my way to HQ for a big chin-wag." He jerked his head toward the door. "There's an escort out in the street waiting for me. Probably making your neighbours wonder what's going on. I'll drop by and pay my respects, but I can't stay. I'm sorry, old friend. I know it's been a while."

"Yeah?" Nick looked at him narrowly. "What's going on, Nate? Can I help?"

"I don't think so." He thought for a moment. "Look, maybe I'll tell you about it anyway, if you're sure you have the time. Gives me a chance to get the details straight, and maybe you'll see something I'm missing. You mind if we sit down?" He looked around for a chair, pulled one up and sagged into it. "I've been sleeping on the ground the last few weeks. It's not as fun as I remember."

"I'll bet. What were you looking for?"

The General hesitated, looking at Lily. "This is confidential stuff, Nick. It can't leave this room."

"It won't. Lily's rock solid." He looked at her and she nodded. Nick poured two more glasses then pulled up another chair and sat down. "So what's the deal?"

Nate took the drink and sipped at it. "Truth is, I don't know yet. If we're lucky, it's just slavers. If we're not, maybe a full-scale invasion."

"Go on."

"We've been picking up rumours all winter. Lots of activity across the border, up New Hampshire way. We have spies out there, of course – that's no secret – and the trade caravans cross regularly. We make it worth their while to be our eyes and ears. Since fall, we've been hearing disturbing news. Strangers. Murders and disappearances. Caravans looted, farmsteads wiped out."

Nick shrugged. "Doesn't sound like anything new," he said. "Winter time always puts the pinch on the raider gangs."

"Yeah, I know. But it's not just a few hungry marauders this time. There's been attacks in force. And we've been getting refugees, enough that we've set up a camp for them at the old air force base at Hanscom. We've been disarming them as they come over, naturally. A few resisted. There's some big warlords up that way. A couple of them tried to cross the border in force."

"How did that go?"

"Badly, for them. But after we bloodied a few noses, they sued for peace. Luckily for us they hate each other more than they hate us. I don't like to think what would happen if they got together. That's part of what this meeting is about tomorrow. Peace talks. Mutual defence. That's sort of thing. Gets up my craw to make talk-talk with people who are barely one jump up from raiders themselves, but they know the country. And they're fighting for their homes. I think we can trust them. For now."

"We haven't heard a word of this down here," Nick said.

"Good. I don't want the news to get out until we know what we're facing."

"Sounds to me like someone's moving in. Clearing the country and pushing people out ahead of them."

"It does, doesn't it? Still it can get pretty wild up there. But this is worse. We've been patrolling in force since the snow melted, and I've got rangers out scouting. Nick… the stuff that's going on. Wait a minute." He got up and went to the door, then came back with a young woman in uniform. She was a few years older than Lily: slightly built, with dark hair cut short almost to her skull. A long scar seamed one side of her face from forehead to jawline, and where her left eye had been was a mass of twisted scar tissue. She carried a long knife on one hip and a sniper rifle slung over her shoulder.

"Sir?" she said, eyeing Nick and Lily warily, as if they might suddenly become threats to be dealt with.

"Winnie, this is Nick Valentine and his secretary, Lily. You may speak freely before them. Nick, Lily – this is Winnie - Corporal Nguyen - " he used the anglicised pronunciation, 'win' - "one my rangers. One of my best rangers, actually, and why she keeps refusing promotion I'll never know."

The corporal nodded at Nick. "It is an honour to meet you, Mr. Valentine. I have heard of you."

Nick looked vaguely embarrassed. "Er… thanks. It's an honour to meet you, too."

"Winnie, tell them about Sawyer's Crossing."

"Yes sir. Three weeks ago I and two others – Privates Eckert and Millar - were scouting about two days march northwest of Fort Carlisle, up toward the Green Mountains along the old Turnpike Road trail. We were on the trail of a group of riders – 20-25, I estimate, with outriders and scouts, heading west. Just past the ruins at Jaffrey Station their trail merged with several other groups of similar sizes coming in from the north and south. I estimate close to 200 in total. It looked like some of them might have actually been camping there, waiting.

"By then we were no more than three days behind them. There was heavy smoke on the horizon, so we climbed Mount Monadnock to get a better look. There is a settlement at Sawyer's Crossing, straddling the Ashuelot River, and it was clearly on fire. I left Eckert on watch there while Millar and I worked our way around to come at it from the north.

"By the time we got there, the town was a smoking ruin and the attackers were gone. There were no survivors."

She stopped and looked at the General. He nodded. "It's okay," he said gently. "I know it's difficult."

She nodded, gulped. "The dead were all men and older boys, along with older women. They'd been… slaughtered. Lined up and killed. And there were crucifixions. A dozen of them, nailed to telephone poles. Some of the women had been -" She closed her eyes. Finally she said: "I've been on the frontier my whole life. I've been a ranger since I was 17. I thought I'd seen it all. Apparently I was wrong."

"Thank you, Corporal," the General said, dismissing her. She saluted, nodded at Nick and Lily and left.

"Huh." Nick's eyes went hard. "What's that bunch out west? Caesar's Legion? They'd be a long way from home if it was."

"That whole crucifixion thing sure sounds like them, doesn't it? But Nevada and California are awfully far away. Maybe it's a home-grown version. Damned little news coming out of the Great Lakes these days. Anything could be happening out there. The thing that really worries me is the size of it, and how well-organized it was. This wasn't just a raid. Sawyer's Crossing is an important trading centre. It's heavily fortified, well-armed. They should have been able to hold for weeks, even against a determined assault."

Nick's eyes were hooded. "I'm sorry about Sawyer's Crossing," he said. "I used to know that area pretty well, once upon a time. Pretty little town, pre-War. Cheshire County. Used to be some good skiing up there." He paused. "Look, General … it's been a while since I've been up that way, but if you needed another set of eyes on the ground, I could be convinced."

"No, Nick. But thanks; I appreciate the offer. The Minutemen will handle it. And if we can't, we'll need every gun we have right here." He looked back at Lily. "Can you shoot?"

She nodded. "Uncle Nick's been teaching me," she said.

"Good."

-OOO-

After he left, Lily said, "Do you think anyone could really threaten us here? With all we've got?"

"I don't know. Hearing the General talk that way makes me worried. He doesn't go in for too much in the way of dramatics. Or he didn't used to. It's been a while since we talked. Maybe old age is finally catching up to him, too."

"You were friends for a long time."

"Uh huh." Nick smiled at a sudden memory. "He came here looking for my help one day. Turns out I needed some rescuing of my own, first. After that, we travelled together for a piece. Pulled each other out of a few tight spots in the process."

"Like when he helped you destroy the Institute."

Nick laughed. "It was Nate who destroyed the Institute. I just tagged along."

"That's not how Grandma told it."

"Well, she was fibbing a little, then. Oh, I did my bit, but it was Nate did most of the heavy lifting. And we had help – outfit called the Railroad supplied the muscle. It was a near thing all the same. In the end, we got lucky. Remember that. You can be tough as nails, smart as a fresh coat of paint and armed to the nuts, but it won't matter a bent bottle cap if the luck runs against you."

He frowned. "The Institute never took the threat seriously. Figured we'd fall apart at the first hard push. Even when we'd made it inside and the place was going up in flames around us. They never really believed they could lose." He looked at the girl. "Remember that, too."

-OOO-

It was three days later that Annie came bursting into Nick's office. She was distraught, her face wild and her chest heaving. She had a note in her hand.

"Annie, what the hell?" Nick said, turning in his chair.

"Have you seen Lily?"

"What?"

"Lily! Have you seen Lily?"

He shook his head. "Not since Nate dropped by. Annie, calm down and tell me what's going on."

"She's run away!"

"Run away? To where?"

Annie held out the note in her hand. Nick took it from her and read:

 _Dear Mom and Dad_ :

 _I don't want you to worry about me, even though I know you will. I wanted to tell you all this in person, but I knew you'd say 'no'. So instead I'm doing it this way. Please don't be sad. It's something I have to do._

 _Since Grandma died, all I've been able to think about is how soft my life is compared to hers, and how hard she had to fight to make the world a better place, just so I could grow up safe and happy. All of them – Grandma, and Uncle Nick and the General and everyone from those days. But instead of appreciating them, all I could think of was how boring my life is and how I wished I could go back to "the good old days". I guess I know better than that – thank you, Uncle Nick, for reminding me. But it doesn't mean I want to just sit here and wait for someone to stick a ring on my finger. Maybe that's okay for Jeannie and Harper, but I owe it to Grandma to do something different with my life._

 _When the General was talking to Uncle Nick he said there was trouble up on the frontier, that they'd need every hand they could get. So I've decided to join the Minutemen. I know it means I won't finish school, but there's lots of time for that. I'm 18 now. That's old enough to make my own decisions, and this is what I've decided. Hell, they took Howie and I can shoot a hundred times better than him. Uncle Nick's been teaching me, and I can put three shots through a tin can before it hits the ground. He says that's pretty good. Howie can hit the side of a barn two times out of three, if he's standing close and it's not moving too fast._

 _I took Grandma's gun. I'm sorry; I know that's stealing. But I feel like she approves._

 _Mom and Dad (and Uncle Nick) please don't be mad at me. I have to do this._

 _Love you,_

 _Lily_

Nick finished reading and looked up to see Annie glaring at him. "You've been teaching her to shoot?"

He looked embarrassed. "Sure, why not? Girl that pretty needs to know how to shoot, just to keep the boys off. Hell, I taught you, too, for the same reason. Or don't you remember?"

"That was different."

"The hell it was."

"The hell it _was._ I didn't run off to join the Minutemen!"

"Well, that's true. Any idea when she left?"

Annie buried her face in her hands. "Saturday, I think, after her birthday party. She went to a friend's in the afternoon, said she was sleeping over for the weekend. She's been so upset since Mom died. I was just happy to see her back to her old self. Nick, where would she go?"

"What does Jack say?"

"He doesn't know – he had to go out to Jamaica Plain last night to install some water purifiers. I don't know what to do."

"Let's think about this." Nick paced the room, thinking aloud. "They had a recruiting station set up in the Market a couple weeks ago, but that was just temporary. And I doubt she'd have gone down to the Castle to sign up. For one thing, the General would have put her on the next coach home. That just leaves the frontier posts, really. There isn't anywhere else they take new recruits. Fort Carlisle, maybe. It's a major post, and that's where Howie was heading. Of course, that's assuming she even got as far as the city gates. Have you checked with her friends?"

"Only Liz - the girl whose house she was supposed to be staying at. When she didn't show up before school this morning, I went over there. I thought she was skipping again. But they hadn't seen or talked to her all weekend."

"Okay. You'd better do a canvass of her other friends first. Maybe she talked to someone. Send the girls. And while you're at it, check with Security. If she left the city, someone will have seen her go. Unless she grew wings and flew out, which doesn't seem likely."

"What about you?"

"I'll head up to Carlisle. You get a message down to Nate, tell him what's going on and ask him to spread the word, in case I miss her. When is Jack due back?"

"Day after tomorrow."

"Okay. Send him a message, too. But unless you hear something, make sure he stays put."

"Why?"

"In case I need him. I'll send a courier once I figure out what's going on and he can come meet me if necessary. With any luck, I'll catch word of her on the road. Either way, I'll keep in touch."

Annie sighed. "This is all my fault, Nick. We… let her get away with things. I let her get away with things. Jack wanted us to lay down the law, but I loved my little wild child. I always figured she'd settle down after a while. Jack will say I was too easy on her. And I was."

"Don't talk nonsense. Lily's a fine kid. She's probably holed up somewhere, hungry and cold and too damned stubborn to come home. I'll find her and I'll bring her back. Okay?"

"I just can't believe she'd do something like this."

Nick laughed. "Can't you? I knew a girl once, fell in love with a wounded Gunner, after Quincy. Nursed him back to health, decided she was gonna marry him. Anyone who didn't like it could go 'shove it up whatever they used for an asshole' I believe is what she said. I hear he fixes water purifiers nowadays."

Annie smiled. "I hear he does." Her smile disappeared. "Nick, you have to find her. It's not that there's anything wrong with joining up. But she has to finish school first. And I worry about her out there by herself. Gun or no gun, she's still a little girl out alone, and travelling the Commonwealth isn't a walk in the park, even now."

"Well, I agree. Don't worry, Annie. I'm already out the door."

-OOO-

In fact, it took somewhat longer than that, starting with a trip to the market to roust Antonio out of bed and undergo the indignities of a major overhaul. He had a little stock of spare parts he'd been holding onto, in case of emergencies. This didn't feel like one, yet. But he'd had a lot of time in the last couple days to worry about the General's news. If there was trouble coming, he'd like to face it with knees that didn't ache when it rained. Besides, walking out of the shop with brand new knee joints, a re-lined combustion chamber and new battery plates made him feel better than he had in a very long time. He was whistling by the time he got back to the office.

He'd need provisions. Whiskey was his old standby because of its a high calorie count and portability. It wouldn't get him drunk anymore, now that his power couplings had been re-tuned. He'd have to get Antonio to fix that when he got back. He wrapped a pair of bottles in an old towel and stowed them in his travelling pack, then added two more. Whiskey had other uses besides feeding his power cells. A few boxes of shells went in next, and some extra quick loads for his revolver. His lockpicks and hacking tools he always carried with him, of course, but he threw in two extra pairs of reading glasses and a sack of bottlecaps, the universal coinage of post-Apocalypse America. As an afterthought he added a pair of nice binoculars he'd found while scrounging through a department store once, and a battered copy of Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep", which he'd been meaning to get around to re-reading one of these days.

He frowned, then went to the footlocker beside the desk and took out a pair of fragmentation grenades. There was a single stimpack in there and a pouch with an assortment of combat meds, which he also packed. He couldn't have said exactly why, except he had a nagging feeling of being on the edge of something bigger and potentially more explosive than it seemed. He rifled through the filing cabinet by his desk until he found an old US Army Corps of Engineers map of Cheshire County. It was pre-War, of course. The date on it was 2071. But it was beautifully detailed and had been heavily annotated. On a foggy day, a compass and a good map can save your life. And he had a built-in compass.

There was one last thing. Reaching into his desk drawer he took out a small, metal box. Inside was a stack of paper – letters, old photographs and assorted memorabilia, the kind of flotsam and jetsam people – even robots – acquire over the course of their lives. At the very bottom was an envelope, addressed to Nick Valentine, care of the Boston Police Department. It was badly water-stained and the letter inside was old and brittle. He unfolded it carefully.

 _Sawyer's Bridge Lodge_

 _Swanzey, NH_

 _Dear Nicky:_

 _I hope you will forgive me for doing it this way. If I was braver, I would have taken the train down to Boston to see you in person. But I'm not brave. I never have been. You were always the brave one, and now that isn't enough._

 _Nick, it's been a great run for us. Especially after everything you've been through. And I know we've talked seriously about the future. But some things have come up. I can't say more. It's work related, all "burn-before-reading" stuff. You know. But it means I'm being transferred again._

 _I know what you'll say, that you'll wait. But we've both played that game before and it never ends well. There's other things, too. I don't mean to be mysterious. I just can't talk about it. Will you please believe me when I say it's not about you? What a terrible cliché. I'm sorry. But it's nothing you said or did, or didn't say or didn't do, or some weird fault about you I couldn't get over. And there isn't anyone else. Not that there ever won't be, I suppose, but I promise, cross-my-heart-hope-to-die that I'm not replacing you with someone "better"? (How could there ever be such a person?)_

 _If I could tell you everything, I know you would understand. This breaks my heart, too._

 _Love,_

 _Meredith_

He refolded the letter and put it back in its envelope then after a moment's hesitation slipped it into an inside pocket. He took a look at the heavy combat shotgun in its cabinet against the wall then shook his head. Damned thing had a kick like a horny radstag. Probably tear his shoulder off.

He took one last look around the place, taking in the untidy piles of gear in the corner he'd always meant to get straightened up, the stack of papers on his desk and all the other bits and pieces piled hither and yon. Clutter had always been his personal nemesis. Well, he'd worry about it when he got back.

He didn't for a minute doubt that Lily was on her way to the nearest Minuteman recruiting station. Nor was it certain she would come back with him. She had all her mother's stubbornness plus some of her own. Technically, she was old enough at 18 to join. But wasn't a rule, just a guideline and he could probably get Nate to have her recruitment quashed. He just wasn't sure his relationship with her would survive that kind of interference.

There were worse things she could do with her life than join the Minutemen. He'd made up his mind some time ago to talk to Nate about it when the time was right. But off she went, in typical Lily fashion, throwing twenty wrenches into everyone's well laid plans.

He sighed, adjusted his satchel and left, locking the door behind him.

It was late morning by now, and Lily's sisters had reported back. Whatever she'd had planned, she hadn't shared it with any of her friends. The guards at Diamond City's main gate had logged her out just after noon on Saturday, but there was no record of her return, and a search of her room had revealed clothes missing as well as travelling gear and her sturdy hiking boots. Ellie's pistol was indeed gone from its spot on the shelf, along with the box of spare shells and two more besides that Nick knew she had kept in a lower drawer. She'd had a holster made for it, too, although technically it was a "belly gun" – the hammer and sights filed down so it could be drawn easily from a purse or waistband without danger of catching anything. But a holster was always going to be a faster draw, and this was missing too.

The sergeant on duty at the gate Saturday night just shrugged, stony-eyed, when a furious Annie demanded to know why they'd let a child out of the city on her own without asking where she was going. "It's a free country, lady," he'd answered. "Not my job to keep tabs on people old enough to look after themselves. Besides, she was dressed for the weather and packing heat like she knew how to use it. I'd'a stopped her if I thought there was a problem."

Privately, Nick agreed, but Annie was worried sick and so here he was, on the road again. On the other hand, it was a beautiful spring afternoon, and he felt better than he had in quite some time. With a jaunty wave to Annie and the girls, he turned his face north, toward the frontier.

-OOO-


	3. Chapter 3

The Minuteman post at Carlisle Station was northwest of Concord, a long day's walk from Diamond City. For Nick, since he was getting a late start, it meant over-nighting either in Lexington or Concord, depending on which road he took. Which meant the first order of business was figuring out which road Lily had taken. The Lexington Road was the most direct route. But it wasn't the only one, especially if she was trying to duck any pursuit. There was also the possibility she'd changed her mind on the way there. Or run into trouble. She might even be on her way back. If so, he didn't want to miss her.

There were daily passenger and freight coaches to both Concord and Lexington from DC, but they left early in the morning. Leaving after lunch, Lily would have missed the coach and so, like Nick, been forced to walk. She might even have planned it that way. He stopped to talk to the ticket agent anyway, on the office chance she'd inquired about fares.

"Haven't seen her," the woman said, handing Nick the photograph he'd shown her.

"You're sure about that?" he prodded, holding the picture up. It showed Lily sitting at the kitchen table doing homework, pencil in hand and a harassed look on her face.

"Annie's girl, right?" She shook her head. "Sorry, Nick. She definitely didn't buy a ticket. I see her, I'll tell her you're looking for her."

"Thanks."

On a hunch, Nick showed the photo to a pair of off-shift drivers lounging in the sunshine nearby, finishing off their lunches.

"Sure, I seen her," one said. "Saturday, on the way back from Lexington. Just the other side of the bridge. Blonde hair, red backpack, right? I was running empty. Told her I'd turn around and give her a ride if she was willing to pay the fare, if you know what I mean." He spat juicily at a crow eyeing the remains of his sandwich. "Flipped me the bird, the little bitch. Too bad for her. When Big Jim Baker gives you a ride, baby, you know you been rode."

Nick glared at him. "She's in high school."

The driver waved dismissively. "Sure, pal, sure. I'm just talkin'. Don't get your shorts in a knot."

Nick left them. He guessed it would have been getting dark by the time she hit Lexington, but there were a couple of good travellers' inns on the road in and he was reasonably certain she would have stayed in one of them. Carlisle was a half-day's hike after that, which meant she'd have arrived yesterday afternoon. Which, Nick thought, meant she had probably been a sworn-in Minutemen recruit for a full day now. Barring catastrophe or cold feet along the way.

It was a good day for walking and Nick let his stride lengthen. The sun was warm and bright over his shoulder and there was a light breeze out of the west that carried with it the scent of wet earth and green, growing things. He smiled to himself. It had been some time since he'd left Diamond City. As always, he was amazed at the way Boston had changed in the half-century since the fall of the Institute. Although many of the sturdier pre-War structures still stood - nowadays largely refurbished and re-built - the endless swamp of shattered buildings that had made post-War Boston such a charming place to live was being gradually cleared. There were rough areas, still, but there also new buildings and vegetable gardens in places that had once been the haunt of raiders and ferals. He waved to a young couple planting potatoes in an empty lot next to the old Parkview Apartments building. He was digging, she was following behind, plopping the seed potatoes into the holes and covering them with moist earth. They waved at him as he passed, smiles on their dirt-smeared faces.

The same went for the ubiquitous piles of collapsed rubble and the fleets of ruined vehicles that had once choked the streets. Like the ravaged buildings, they had been scrapped and cut up, melted down and re-purposed.

It hadn't all been peace, love and kumbaya. The fall of the Institute had left a power vacuum in the Commonwealth that a number of groups scrambled to exploit. It had been a near thing. Welded together under the charismatic leadership of Nate Howard, the Minutemen and the Railroad stayed loyal. But they weren't enough. The Minutemen were still re-building in those days and the Railroad had suffered badly in the assault on the Institute. In the end it was only the arrival of civilian militias from the outlying settlements and the heroic last stand of defectors from the Brotherhood of Steel led by a renegade named Danse that saved Diamond City.

The Brotherhood itself had stayed aloof, calling its ground units back to the Prydwen,the flying fortress that served as their base of operations. There they waited, preparing their own assault against the weakened city below. It had been a mistake. Realizing the danger, agents of the Railroad infiltrated the Prydwen, capturing the control room and then, when the explosive charges they'd set failed to detonate, flying the giant ship at full power into the ground. Cut off from all support, the few remaining Brotherhood units had either attacked and been slaughtered, or surrendered.

The victory at Diamond City broke the back of the local raider gangs and sent the much-more dangerous Gunners scrambling back to their bases around Quincy. In the years that followed Quincy was re-taken and the Gunners finally destroyed. That, together with the pacification of the super mutants after the Siege of Goodneighbour, had finally brought stability to the Commonwealth. For nearly 20 years, peace had reigned.

With peace had come prosperity. An entire generation had come of age without knowing war or hunger, fear or want. But the lessons of the past remained. People still built with an eye toward defense, and at ground-level, buildings showed an armoured face to the street. The Boston Nick walked through now lacked much of the warmth and openness of the one he remembered from before the War.

On the other hand, you rarely got jumped by ferals anymore.

The nuclear chain reaction that destroyed the Institute had also had destroyed the only real possibility of re-building the Commonwealth as it had been before the Great War. "What if?" It was a game Nick and some of the others often played. Would Father's unswerving fanaticism have survived his death? Could the ingrained mistrust of the Institute in the Commonwealth have been overcome? Or even: "What if the Institute had won?"

They would never know, now, and the gradual deterioration of the technical infrastructure that had survived the War was nearly complete - the victim of scavengers, of war, and of the ravages of time. The seemingly inexhaustible micro-fusion plants that had kept so many lights burning and equipment functioning gradually failed, and when they did, there was no one left who could repair them. Nor did the tools and technology exist to make those repairs. With some exceptions, the Commonwealth of today was a lot like it had been in that long-ago time when the first Minutemen scrambled to defend their homes against their erstwhile redcoat masters.

Except for the guns, of course. No matter how far civilization fell, people always seemed to manage to hold onto their guns.

There had been refugees a-plenty after the Fall of the Institute. That had been a problem. Most of the escaping synths had moved on to new homes farther up the coast; the Railroad had seen to that. But the humans – hapless civilians mostly, fleeing for their lives with nothing but the clothes on their backs – had to be integrated into Commonwealth society. There had been difficulties. Many had fallen victim to raiders and slavers. There had been gang rapes and lynch mobs. Nick growled at the memory.

He crossed the Charles over the old lift bridge. It wouldn't lift again any time soon, but someone had patched the worst of the holes and the crossing wasn't quite the adventure it had once been. The road was closed at the other end of the bridge and a large "Radiation Zone" sign marked where a detour swung wide around where the Institute had been. A fortified guard tower stood there. Owing to the high radiation, the ruins here remained largely unchanged. It was one of the few places in the Commonwealth where dark things still lurked and Nick was glad to fall in with a patrol heading in his direction. He asked for news of Lily. Someone had indeed noticed her - "a girl with a red backpack, travelling alone" safely past the danger zone. Nick breathed a small sigh of relief.

To the north and west stood Cambridge University, on College Square just past the old Cambridge Police Post. It was the first institution of higher learning to be built in Boston in 250 years. It was modest as yet, specializing in agricultural research and environmental remediation. Nate's adopted son, Shaun, was Rector there. He'd been at Ellie's funeral but there hadn't been much chance to talk and Nick promised himself he would stop in on the way back.

The sun was westering by the time he reached Lexington. The pre-War elevated superhighway through here had been largely restored and was home to a glitzy new retail and commercial district. But there were several small, family-run hostels near the old bus station, and Nick guessed that Lily would have found these more to her liking. He struck pay dirt on the second one.

"Oh, yeah. I seen her." The big woman behind the counter handed Nick back his photo. She was middle-aged, pleasant-faced but with shrewd eyes, and hands roughened from work. She had a motherly smile, though, and Nick liked her immediately. "Told me she was up to see her brother at Carlisle. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't, weren't my business to pry. But she seemed to be in good spirits and she weren't hurting none that I could see. And she had the caps to spend."

"Did she stay here?"

"Oh, sure. Not so many travellers come in since the coach line moved its stop up to the overpass, but I still keep my rooms clean and fresh. Most of my income these days is from selling drinks." She nodded at the open door across the room, through which Nick could see a few rough-looking men standing at a long bar.

She followed his gaze. "I run a decent house. I don't allow trouble and I got rules about minors in the bar, especially pretty, unaccompanied girls. Even honest-looking ones. My clientele is mostly single men working salvage up at the old Corvega plant, and they like their whiskey. Letting a girl in there on a Saturday night is just asking for trouble."

"Was she any trouble?"

"Hell, no. I told her the rules, she was fine. Took her meal up to her room myself, made sure she was settled and comfortable then saw her on her way in the morning."

The woman looked at Nick. "I recognize you," she said. "You're that detective fellow, ain't you? From Diamond City." She looked smug. "I pegged her for a runaway minute I laid eyes on her. Her people sent you to bring her home, I expect." Nick nodded, not wanting to get into complicated explanations. "Well, I'm sure you'll find her," she continued. "All I know is she said she was heading up to Carlisle Station. There's a town there, just down from the fort. It's no place for a girl alone, but I told her to stop at Hank Pretty's place if she needed somewhere to stay. It's on the road into town. He's an old friend. You go there, tell him Linda Sykes sent you. He'll do you right."

"Mighty kind of you," Nick said.

"Least I can do," the woman answered. "You tracked down a deadbeat once, years ago. Owed my pop a considerable sum of money. Lemuel Sykes, my pop, ran a little trading outfit out of Bunker Hill back in the day."

Nick shook his head apologetically. "Sorry, I don't remember."

"That's okay. It were small potatoes for a high roller like you, I expect. But you did us a real service and my Pop was always grateful. It'd be an honour if you stayed here tonight. On the house."

Nick accepted the offer, ignoring the little voice that was urging him to press on. He'd felt a growing sense of urgency about this trip: a desire to see it through quickly that had less to do with worrying about Lily and more with his own need to return to familiar surroundings. He was, he suddenly realized, out of his comfort zone, and it was making him feel a bit dislocated. It jarred him to think that he even had a comfort zone, or that being out of it could cause him this much anxiety. On the other hand, he was tired. Even with his new plates, his charging system wasn't what it had once been. What he really needed was to get some organics into his system, run a diagnostic and shut down for the night.

The room was small and simply furnished, but it was clean and quiet. Nick ate the meal she brought and took a couple healthy slugs of whiskey, then ran a series of maintenance routines on himself before stretching out on the bed preparatory to shutting himself down. On an impulse, he took the letter out of his pocket and read it again:

"… _If I could tell you everything, I know you would understand. This breaks my heart, too. Love, Meredith."_

Funny thing was, he didn't remember anyone named Meredith.

He closed his eyes. In the darkness, he dreamed…

-OOO-

There was a light, and then darkness, and then a long, confused time: a tumult of voices and faces, scattered images wrenched out of context, pouring over him like a river in spate. He tried to concentrate. There was a name, and he grabbed on to it like a drowning man reaching for a rope. He felt the beginnings of memory tease him, and he reached for it. But there was a noise from somewhere, like a door banging repeatedly in the wind. Memory fled, running out between his fingers like a dream fading on sudden waking. Despair filled him. And then it was just him and the gate, banging, again and again, and wherever he'd been before, now he was here. Wherever here was.

He opened his eyes. The world swam in shapeless blobs of light. Unnamed colours flashed and faded and there was a blast of music, shrill and discordant, that swirled around him like an angry demon learning to play the bagpipes. And cold. A deadly, life-taking cold that pawed at him with icy fingers. Oddly, he did not actually feel coldness, nor the rough, broken surface on which he lay sprawled, his body tilted at an ungainly angle. Instead, he simply recognized their existence, as if they were a story told by a stranger or something he'd seen on TV.

He tried to marshal his thoughts but they kept drifting off, and he realized his grasp on consciousness was tenuous. There was an insistent hum in his ears, a high-pitched buzzing that slowly rose in volume. There were voices within it, he realized. Dozens of them, all talking at once. Voices that murmured and shouted, that chanted and droned, that mumbled and roared, all mixed together in an incomprehensible babble.

A female voice rang out above the others, speaking in urgent tones:

"…gency reserves falling. Levels, 2.02 per cent, and falling. … 0.98% and falling. Warning, system failure. Warning, approaching depletion. Repair systems offline. Repair systems offline. Warning: permanent shut down imminent. Shut down imminent… " Other voices – the same voice, maybe, reeling off columns of meaningless numbers, but more quietly now, fading into the background hum that was getting louder and louder. The colours fled from his vision and the world went dark around him. He was, he realized, about to die.

Then he smelled it: a putrid, charnel-house stench that filled his nostrils and triggered a sensation like hunger. But hunger of an intensity he had never felt before, manifesting itself as searing pain. He doubled up and rolled over, feeling something soft and wet beneath him. Something sticky smeared across his lips and face. Reflexively, he opened his mouth, and then he was tearing at it with his teeth, ripping off huge chunks of flesh from something, barely chewing before swallowing down. One mouthful. Two. His hunger was a living thing. Mindlessly, he devoured. From somewhere inside of him he heard a sound like a "click-click-click" and then a surging heat in in his belly. The buzzing in his ears began to fade and through it he could hear the woman's voice again.

"…minent…. Calculating. Energy levels…. 1.25 % and rising…. 2.2% …. 5.5%. Rising. Diagnostic systems on-line. Calculating. Main capacitor failure. Initiating manual over-ride. …. Re-booting…"

Still he ate, repulsed by the smell but unable to stop, until the heat in his belly was a raging bonfire. And still the voices droned or muttered or chanted, and the numbers rose.

Finally he opened his eyes again and looked around. The world spun and turned, then resolved itself into focus. Around him all was ruin: a landscape of reeking garbage and broken things stretching out on all sides under a cold, grey sky. A small shed, weather-beaten, stripped of its paint by time and the elements, stood nearby and its door was open, caught by the relentless wind and slamming repeatedly against its frame. In the distance stood the towers of a city, broken and fallen. A rusted tricycle stood beside him and beneath him was the body of a man, bloated and decayed, eye sockets empty, mouth open in silent horror. Maggots were crawling in and out of it, and the belly was freshly torn open, shreds of skin and intestine glistening wetly in the bleak, winter light. Nick gagged and looked down at his hands. Then he began to scream.

-OOO-

He awoke with a start, jerking himself upright, his main circulatory pump thudding in his chest. He stared around the room, unsure of where he was or how he'd gotten there. Then memory returned and he calmed down, over-riding his emergency systems to bring his metabolic rate back down to normal functioning. He took a deep breath.

"That was a bad one," he said to the room. It had been a long time since he'd had that particular dream, a re-enactment of the day he'd awoken to find himself, not Nick Valentine from Chicago, a detective on loan to the Boston Police Department, but some futuristic cybernetic creature, a robot with human memories; naked, battered and alone on a garbage heap on the outskirts of a ruined city, with no memory of anything after lying back in an exam room at the Cambridge Institute where he'd gone for neurological testing.

It had taken him weeks to learn how to function. The voices were the worst part, the constant chatter of data flowing back and forth that was the various parts of his body talking to itself. Sensory inputs, command-and-control, diagnostic controls, maintenance routines, all the various systems - autonomic and otherwise – the controlled his body. He'd learned how to interpret them eventually. More important, he'd learned to distinguish between things he actually needed and the endless streams of routine information that could be ignored. Nowadays he barely noticed them.

Nick rolled out of bed and ran a diagnostic. He was a bit stiff from yesterday's unaccustomed exercise. Other than that, he felt pretty good. The sun was up, and to judge from the light coming in through the curtains, it was going be another nice day.

The innkeeper was back at her desk when he came down. A dark-haired young man sat on a stool beside her reading a book on the counter.

"Good morning," she said, looking up. "Sleep okay?"

"I did, thanks. Nice room. Very comfortable. I'll be back this way day after tomorrow, I hope. Probably I'll stop in again."

"I'll keep an eye out for you." She paused. "Listen, Mr. Valentine. You might want to be a bit careful going through town."

"How's that?" Nick raised an eyebrow.

"Well… not rightly sure how to put this. It's just… we don't get too many like you around here, and folk hereabouts still tell stories about the bad old days. Synths and war-bots, stuff like that. The locals would be fine, of course. We're not some hick town stuck out in the bush somewhere. But them good ol' boys they brought in to work up at the plant, well… Close up you don't really pass for human, and some of them might shoot first, ask questions later." She nodded at the boy beside her. "If you like, I'll have my Sam see you safe to the other side of town."

Nick was at first inclined to refuse. He didn't doubt he could handle any problems that might arise. On the other hand, the last thing he needed was trouble. His sense of urgency had returned, worse now than before, and the need to get to Carlisle without delay was an almost physical compulsion.

In any event, nothing untoward happened on the trip through Lexington. He bade the boy farewell at the northern outskirts and tipped him with a handful of caps, then turned his face once more to the northwest.

There was a steady stream of traffic on the road. Most of it was slow-moving stuff, farm wagons and the like. A couple of times, mounted couriers had come clattering the other way. Once it was a procession of what were clearly refugees from the north: tired, beaten-looking people pushing their belongings on handcarts and driving a few half-starved cattle ahead of them. Minutemen on horseback accompanied them, armed and watchful.

Nick moved purposefully, ignoring the occasional startled glance or look of recognition. It had been some years since he'd been up this way, and in its own way, the country had changed as much as Boston had. It was all farms here now, with long lines of split-rail fences and neatly-painted houses. It reminded Nick very much of his childhood, of summers spent at his grandparents' farm out in the Midwest. A dog followed him for a while, barking through the fence, and cattle stopped in mid-chew to watch him go by. It was rich country, thanks in no small part to the blood that had been spilled over it. Ironically, in the name of peace.

Nick thought about the General's story, and shivered.

It was just past noon when he arrived at Fort Carlisle. The Minuteman post was on higher ground over-looking Carlisle Station, where an ancient railway crossed the highway a few miles west of where the old town of Carlisle had once stood. At the crossroads below the fort, a busy settlement had grown up. As is the nature of these things, it was wholly parasitic on the fort above. A cluster of taverns and brothels, restaurants and gaming houses lined the main street. On the streets leading off of it were rooming houses and stables, shops and trading posts. One small building announced "Baths – 5 caps – Guaranteed hot" and a small pre-War church stood next to town offices and the Commonwealth Postal Service Building.

Nick stopped in to see Hank Pretty, bringing greetings from Linda Sykes. Hank was a likeable old chatterbox, and Nick got the impression very little happened in Carlisle Station that he didn't know about. Except for Lily.

"Nope, ain't seen her. Sorry. Girl travelling alone, I'd remember. Enlistment office is two blocks up. Big Minuteman flag flying right out front. Can't miss it."

-OOO-

The recruiting station was a small, wood-framed building just off Main Street. Inside there were a few uncomfortable-looking chairs pushed up against the walls and a pair of filing cabinets in one corner behind a desk where a bored-looking young second lieutenant sat. A magazine lay open beside him, but he was currently filling out a form, which he pushed across the desk at the would-be recruit standing in front of him.

"Sign here and here," he said without looking up, "then take these to the recruiting sergeant." He jerked a thumb at the door behind him then rang the bell on the desk. "Next," he called, taking a new form from the drawer. He glanced up as Nick stepped forward.

"Sorry, too old," he snapped dismissively, putting his pen down. Then he looked again and frowned. "We don't take your kind anyway."

"Lucky for both of us," Nick replied agreeably. "But I'm not here to sign up. I'm looking for a girl." He took Lily's picture out of his pocket and slid it across the desk. "She might have been in yesterday or earlier today."

The officer glanced briefly at the picture then pushed it back at Nick. "If you're looking for teenage girls, you've come to the wrong place. Try Mother Kelly's down the road." He reached for his magazine.

Nick scowled. "This is the Minuteman enlistment office, isn't it? This particular girl would have tried to enlist. She's a runaway. Her family is worried about her." He fished out a business card and put it on the desk. "Nick Valentine, Private Detective" it said.

"Look, Mister -" he looked at the card "—Valentine. She hasn't been in today, and if she had, we'd have sent her home to her mother."

"But maybe she came in yesterday?" Nick persisted.

"No idea. Now if you'll excuse me?" He made to reach again for his magazine. Nick put his hands flat on the desk and leaned across, his eyes burning bright yellow.

"See here, youngster," he said. "That girl should have got into town yesterday afternoon. She was aiming to come here. And I need to find her. That means I need to talk to whoever was working this desk yesterday."

The man's face darkened. "Now, you look here -" he began.

"Sir? Is there a problem?" An older man in sergeant's chevrons poked his head through the door, an amiable expression on his face.

"Finally," the lieutenant snapped, turning toward the new arrival. "This, this person -" he began.

The sergeant ignored him. "Caught some of that from the other room, sir," he said, coming over to Nick. "Let me see that photograph."

Nick held it out. The sergeant took a quick look and gave it back. "Came in yesterday," he said. "A little after lunch, as I recall." He grinned. "Feisty one, too. Wasn't very happy when we told her to come back in a couple years."

"You turned her down? Why? She's eighteen; that's minimum age, last I heard."

"Well, it is and it isn't, if you catch my meaning. She did tell us that, too, but to be honest, she didn't much look it. Officer of the watch told her to come back with a note from her Mama and then he'd think about it."

Nick winced. "I can imagine how that went over."

"Yup. Feisty, like I said. She did say she had a friend up at camp, a recruit named Garcia. We sent her up there. They take recruits there, too. Could be someone up there signed her up. "

Nick thanked the man and left. Walking away, he heard him address the recruiting officer in quiet tones:

"Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but you do know who that is, right? Him and the General were bosom pals back in the day. I heard they took out the Institute single-handed. Blew it right up. With all due respect, word got back you slagged him off, good chance of you bein' the first officer to spend the rest of his career on latrine duty. Also, last time I checked, we were in the business of helping people when they asked for it. Instead of acting like dicks. Sir."

Nick grinned to himself. Maybe there was hope for the military yet.

A troop of mounted scouts were on their way out of the fort as Nick made his way up the road, and he stepped back to let them pass. Close by, a group of fresh recruits were drilling, executing the same manoeuvres that recruits had been sweating over since the Napoleonic Wars, five hundred years before. The air was full of barked commands and the stamping feet raised a cloud of dust from the packed earth of the parade ground. Nick scanned the recruits hopefully, but Lily wasn't there.

He had to explain his mission first to the guards at the gate and then again to the officer of the watch. She listened to him then took his photograph and business card and disappeared inside. She came back a few minutes later.

"Sorry, sir," she said, giving Nick back his photograph. "She hasn't been here as far as I can tell. We've had a ton of new recruits the last while, but someone would have remembered her coming in yesterday. There are recruiting stations at Acton and Zimonja, too. Maybe she went there?"

Nick sighed. "There's a young fellow from Diamond City here, a friend of hers named Howie Garcia, enlisted a few weeks ago. She might have tried to contact him. Is there any way I can talk to him?"

"That we can arrange," she said. "His unit's out on an exercise. I'll send a runner."

She escorted Nick to a small, comfortably-furnished room off a busy office and asked him to wait. Time passed slowly, and Nick found himself fidgeting. Finally, Howie Garcia was ushered in. He was dressed in stained, dust-covered overalls. His face was smudged with dirt and there were bits of twig and dried grass poking out of his hair. But there was a spring to his step and he carried himself with an air of self-assurance that had been noticeably absent just a few weeks before. His face brightened when he saw Nick and he covered the space between them in two long strides, holding out his hand and grinning widely.

"Mr. Valentine! What are you doing here?" Then his face fell. "Did my mother send you? Is everything okay?"

"Your mother's fine, last I heard," Nick said, standing up and shaking Howie's proffered hand. "She says you haven't written in a couple of weeks, though."

"Yeah, I know." Howie gestured guiltily at his dirty overalls. "They keep us going pretty much from sun up to lights-out around here. Doesn't leave time for much else. But I will write. I promise."

"That'd be a good idea. Unless you want her to show up unannounced one of these days."

Howie blanched. "No! Tell her I'll write. Today. Anyway," he added, "graduation's in two more weeks. I'll see her then. But why are you here?"

"I'm looking for Lily."

"Lily?" Howie looked confused. "She's here?"

"You haven't seen her?"

He shook his head. "I got a letter from her last week. But I haven't seen her since I left DC."

-OOO-


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR:

"You're sure?" he said. "She told them down at the recruiting station she was coming up here to see you."

"The recruiting station? She's going to enlist? That's great." His face fell. "But no; she's too young. No way they'd let her join. Hell, they found out a couple of the guys in my group were underage and sent them home right away."

Nick nodded. "So she discovered. But if she didn't come see you, where did she go?"

Howie shook his head. "I don't know what to say. Maybe she just went home. I can see where that would embarrass her. Maybe she just didn't want anyone to know."

"Yeah, well it's too late for that. Is there anywhere else she might have gone? What about your buddy, Garrick? Has she been in touch with him, do you know?"

Howie laughed. "Garrick washed out the second day. He complained to the Lieutenant about having to share a tent with 'coloureds'. Lieutenant allowed as maybe he and the Minutemen weren't a good fit after all, gave him five minutes to get his dumb ass over the horizon. He's still hanging around, though. Some of the guys said they saw him working the door down at Frolick's. That's a bar down in town," he added. "We're not supposed to be in there. Don't tell Mama! She wouldn't like it if she heard I even knew about that kind of place. But that's all I know."

Nick left , promising to send a message when he found out about Lily. He was more worried than he cared to admit, even to himself. Lily and Howie had been best friends since they were little. He didn't believe she would have come this far and not try to visit him, no matter how disappointed - or embarrassed – she was. Still, Howie was right about one thing. Lily didn't take kindly to failure. The fact that she hadn't told him she was coming could have meant she was protecting herself, in case they turned her down.

He replayed the sequence of events in his mind, trying to guess at her next move. It was Tuesday today. She'd left Diamond City on Saturday and arrived in Carlisle the next day, Sunday. Turning around and coming straight back by the shortest route – through Lexington – would have had her home by Sunday night or Monday afternoon at the latest. Either way, odds are he would have either heard news of her or run into her on the road. Even taking the long road through Concord would have only added a half day to her trip, if that, and if she'd come home after he left, a fast courier would have caught up with him.

Knowing Lily, she'd be mortified at having to crawl back with her tail between her legs, especially after the letter she'd left to her parents. Nick considered the possibility, as he'd suggested to Annie, that she was holed up somewhere, too stubborn and too embarrassed to come home. But he had his doubts. Wild though she might be, Lily had her grandmother's unwavering pragmatism. More important was the bond that existed between her and the rest of her family. Lily's pride might lead her to colour the facts a bit, and Nick could imagine her earnest explanations about how guilty she felt for simply leaving without a word. But it wouldn't stop her from coming home, nor would she consider for a moment that they wouldn't welcome her back with open arms. So if she hadn't come home yet, something else had happened.

Nick looked around for someone who could point him in the direction of Frolick's.

-OOO-

"Haven't seen her. Nice looking girl, though. I'd know if she came in here. " The bartender handed Nick back his photograph. The bar was mostly empty. A few townies sat drinking beer around the small stage where a bored-looking black woman lay writhing on a bearskin rug. They were pitching caps at her. Every now and then they crowed excitedly at a particularly lucky hit. When that happened, she moaned without noticeable enthusiasm, the sound barely audible over the music blaring from a cheap radio behind the bar. Although attractive in a tired-looking way, she was not young, and there were old, faded tattoos around her eyes and on her breasts, and stretch marks that showed on her belly and thighs. The barman noticed Nick's gaze.

"Mostly just whores this time of day," he said dismissively. "You want to see the real talent, you gotta come at night, after we get busy. Something for every taste. Even yours, probably."

"Thanks, I'll pass." Nick took a drag of his cigarette, let the smoke trickle out slowly. "You have a doorman here, fellow named Garrick. Is he working tonight?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." The bartender re-filled Nick's glass from the bottle on the counter beside him. Behind them, the dancer had rolled over, drawing her knees up underneath her, spreading her legs and reaching behind herself to separate her labia, making a target for the cap-throwers. She looked over her shoulder at them and licked her lips. One of them climbed onto the stage and the bartender interrupted himself to shout across the room:

"Hey – no touching. You want to touch, you pay up front. Otherwise keep your hands to yourself." He looked back at Nick. "The kind of people we get in here. Anyway… I ain't seen Garrick in a couple days. He didn't show up for his shift on Sunday. Why? What's he done?"

"Nothing that I know of. Any idea where he went?"

The man shrugged. "No clue. He had a room next door at Mother Kelly's. You find him, you tell him he owes for his tab."

-OOO-

The room the giggling girl led him up to was a temple to the gods of bad taste. Garishly decorated in pinks and reds, with heavy carpet underfoot and floor-length curtains over the windows, it was like being in a box of cheap chocolate candy. Nick was surprised to discover the bed was the usual rectangular shape, even if it was big enough to sleep eight, with a massive, padded pink headboard. Candles burned from every flat surface and the air was thick with the smell of hot wax.

It had been an uncomfortable wait in the sitting room downstairs where half a dozen very young women outdid each other to make him feel welcome. Afternoons must be pretty slow at a whorehouse off a military base, he observed to himself, sipping on the overly-sweet drink someone had brought him. He'd explained his business and offered his card, which the woman lying among the silks and pillows on the bed now waved languidly at him.

With a start, he realized she was ghoul.

"Nick Valentine, the famous detective," she said in a gravelly voice. "Come to see me! How terribly exciting. I'm your biggest fan." She patted the bed beside her. "Come tell Mother what she can do for you today." She leered at him. "Or with you, perhaps? I've always wondered about the pleasures of a mechanical man."

"Mother Kelly," Nick said formally, crossing the room. "It's kind of you to see me at such short notice." She held out a hand and he took it in his, bending over to press his lips to the back of it and noting the long, decorated nails. He straightened up, releasing her hand.

She looked at him with a mixture of amusement and disappointment. "So is it only business that brings you to my bed, Mr. Valentine? And here I had such high hopes when Amy brought me your card." She sat up and crossed her legs under her in one swift, graceful movement. She was dressed in something flowingly pink and vaguely transparent. She had been a beauty, he guessed, before the radiation got to her. Still was, in her way, with strong cheekbones above a heart-shaped face, and big, deep eyes, and he could see the curve of her still-slim waist beneath the fabric of her nightgown and the outline of her heavy breasts, swaying as she made herself comfortable among the pillows.

She noted his glance and smiled slightly. "They are lovely, aren't they? I've had many tell me so. Men and women, both." She looked down at the space beside her. "Are you sure I couldn't tempt you? Just for a little while? But perhaps it wouldn't be for a little while. Ghoul sex is like potato chips, you know. It's hard to stop at just one."

Nick laughed. "I hadn't heard that before. But looking at you, I believe it. Mother Kelly, I hope you'll forgive me, but I really am here on business."

"There's some might call you a fool for the chance you're so lightly turning down."

He shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time. Besides, I'm not really built for that sort of thing. A little oversight on the part of the Institute, I'm afraid."

She pouted at him. "I'm sure I could think of something appropriate."

"I'm sure you could. In the meantime - " he pulled out Lily's photograph "—I'm looking for a girl."

"Well, you've come to the right place for that," she said lightly. But Nick wasn't smiling. "Oh, here," she said, snatching the photo away from him. "Let me see that."

She looked it over, long and carefully. "Oh my," she said, finally. "That is a girl worth looking for. A girl like that could make herself a fortune, with the right teacher." She looked up at him. "I don't suppose that's why you're looking for her."

"She's run away. Her mother's worried."

Mother Kelly handed the photo back. "I'll bet. With eyes like those, she should be easy to find. Just follow the trail of broken hearts."

"Part of why I'm here," Nick said. "She might have hooked up with a fellow from up at the fort, kid named Garrick. They said next door he had a room here."

"He did." Mother Kelly's voice got hard. "Little bastard lit out on me, two days ago. I haven't seen him since."

"What was he doing here?"

"Frolick next door pays me to board his bully boys for him. It's a nice bit of extra money for me, plus I like having a young bruiser or two on the premises. Helps keep the customers in line if they know there's a man in the house. "

"Did you talk to him? Did he say anything?"

"Not a damned thing. And now he's gone and Frolick wants his rent back. You think Garrick ran off with your little girl friend, there? Could be. He was a cute little piece. Dumb as a sack of wet fish, but you don't fuck their brains, that's what I always say."

"Sorry?"

Her eyes had gotten dreamy. "Big and stupid… just how I like 'em. Real big, too, if you know what I mean. I wasn't halfway done getting tired of that boy. But if your friend there – " she nodded at the picture "– is looking for something more than just a good lay, she'll get rid of him pretty quick. A real one trick pony, you know? But what a trick… oh man. Anyway, he's got a nasty streak, too. I could tell he didn't have much use for women. Or ghouls. I got the impression he was holding his nose every time we did it. Like he'd rather be anywhere else. But he needed the room, and I told him I came with it, and whatever I wanted to do, he'd better want, too, or he could go live somewhere else. And there ain't anywhere else in town cheap enough for what Frolick pays his doormen."

She grinned. "Gotta admit, it turned me on, makin' him sit up and beg like that. Anyway, I never saw him with any hot little blondes."

Nick frowned. "And he's been gone two days. Can I see where he stayed? Maybe he left something behind."

"Sure. Room's exactly how he left it." She reached up and popped the cap on a speaking tube hidden among the hangings on the wall behind her, whistled into it then called. "Amy? You there?" A muffled voice answered in the affirmative. "Good. Send someone up to show Mr. Valentine to Garrick's room.

She turned to Nick. "I'm sure you don't approve of what I do." He started to speak but she cut him off. "No, don't say it. I've been around a long time. I know what men think before they even think it. Even ones like you. You look at that sweet-faced little girl of yours, and you think about my girls downstairs and wonder what kind of vileness lives in me that I could put them through a life like this. But most of them come from a thousand times worse. If it hadn't been for me, they'd be dead by now. Or worse. Instead, I take 'em in and patch them up, give them an education and a safe place to live. They come to me broken, and I fix them. Sure, they have to work, and it's a hard life, sometimes. But show me a life that isn't? By the time they leave me, they'll have built up quite a tidy little sum of their own – enough to set up anywhere they please – and still young enough and pretty enough to turn any head they want. My girls are no fools. I make sure they make good choices."

There was a knock at the door and one of the girls came in. She smiled when she saw Nick and dropped into a little curtsey. "Shall I take him upstairs now, Mother?" she asked.

"Yes, dear." The old ghoul smiled at Nick. "Forgive me for getting all preachy. My girls matter the world to me. But it was wonderful to finally meet you." She held out her hand for Nick to kiss. "Perhaps you can make time for me some other day. Now off with you. I have to primp."

The girl took Nick up a flight of narrow stairs to a tiny room under the eaves, and left him. The room was sparse, with a low bed in one corner next to a wooden chair that doubled as a bedside table, and a narrow chest of drawers opposite. There were two blankets on the mattress – old, but clean and neatly mended, and a towel hanging from a hook by the door. A small window propped partway open overlooked the street below. There was an ashtray on the chair with a scattering of butts in it next to a stub of a candle in a candle holder.

Nick checked the desk first. There was the usual gear: extra pants and shirt – nothing in the pockets – socks and underclothes. A leather case held a gun cleaning kit and a knife sharpener, and there was a box of condoms and a sewing case. Minuteman issue, Nick noted. Stuck in the back of the drawer was an old girlie magazine, well-thumbed. On the cover someone had written "page 16 has your blonde!" Nick flipped to the page. The girl there did look a bit like Lily, he thought, if you discounted the impossibly large breasts or the odd pose she'd contorted herself into.

He put back the magazine and checked the other drawers, pulling them out to check behind them and shining his light around inside. There was a box of shells in there as well. Homemade reloads, by the look of them, but that wasn't unusual. In the city, the gun dealers usually made their own ammunition. But a boy off the farm or one of the settlements would know how to make his own loads.

Nick folded back the covers on the bed then got down and shone his flashlight into the narrow space under it before finally flipping up the mattress, looking underneath it and feeling around along its edges. He smiled as his fingers found where someone had slit it open, just along the top edge near one corner. He reached in and felt around, pulling out a good-sized pouch and a thin leather walled. The pouch clinked and jingled. Inside was a hundred or so caps and a short, thick-looped gold necklace. The metal was soft and the loops twisted apart easily. There was nothing decorative about it; it was simply an easy way to carry a lot of cash unobtrusively. Travellers had been carrying their money like that for most of history. But it seemed an odd thing for a boy from East Podunk to be wandering around with.

The last thing was the wallet. It was old: pre-War, Nick thought; a billfold for paper money with a little window for an ID card or a credit card on one side and a coin pocket on the other. It was empty except for a note stuffed into the billfold, printed in pen in large, block letters:

"I AM HERE"

-OOO-

Nick poured himself another whiskey. He was back in Frolick's. The girl from before was gone, but another one was in her place, putting on a similar, lacklustre performance. The men watching were cut from the same cloth as the ones before, but drunker, and their laughter was louder and the jokes coarser. There were four of them, and they'd taken to heating their caps with cigarette lighters before throwing them at the girl. Nick doubted she was in any shape to notice. Her eyes were unfocussed and her jaw hung slack, and mostly she just lay on her back and stared at nothing while she pawed aimlessly at herself.

Otherwise, the room was empty. Even the bartender was gone, off to pick up a case of whiskey missed in the morning delivery.

Nick turned back to his bottle. Mother Kelly's had been the high point of the afternoon. Everything else had been one dead end after another. After carefully returning Garrick's stash to its hidey-hole, he'd gone to the Post Office and arranged for a courier to take a message down to Annie, paying the premium to have them change horses at Lexington, then wait for an answer and come back the same way. Maybe Lily was home already. If so, he'd know before morning.

After that, he'd scouted down the Concorde road a ways. Not too far, just far enough to make sure there wasn't anything obvious. Like a big sign saying "Lily Went This Way". Finding nothing obvious, he'd gone back to the fort to see if Garrick had any particular cronies among the other recruits he could talk to. He'd even convinced them to let him search his quarters. Both were dead ends. Whatever Garrick had come with, he'd taken out again, and he hadn't talked about his plans.

Nick had spent the rest of the afternoon beating the bushes. There was a Sheriff's office, but the sheriff was out and the clerk there hadn't seen Lily or Garrick. Nick left his card, then headed down the street, poking his nose into every diner and barroom in town, asking questions and leaving his name and card everywhere he went. He stopped at the church, too, and the offices of the Traveller's Aid Society and the Ladies Temperance League. No one recognized Lily or knew Garrick other than vaguely as the new doorman at Frolick's. But that was okay. Sometimes when you make enough noise, the right people hear it.

He took another drink. The fact that Garrick had left his things at Mother Kelly's meant he was either planning to come back or he'd left unwillingly. Or he'd never left at all. Nick frowned, thinking of all the places you could hide a body in a busy garrison town.

Just then, there was a scream from the direction of the stage, followed by the sound of breaking glass and a man's curse. Nick looked around. The dancer was on her knees on the floor by the stage, struggling as one man held her head up by the hair while another held back her arms. A third was jamming his fingers into her cheeks to force open her mouth while the last one, a swaggering, shaven-headed bruiser in a sweat-stained muscle shirt that may have once been white, was undoing his trousers. He was having some problems with the zipper and the woman shook her head as he tugged at it. Someone slapped her hard and she cried out.

Nick sighed and slid off the bar stool, snagging his bottle from off the counter. It wasn't any concern of his, and he didn't doubt it was a scene that played out in here regularly. Still, consent was consent, and even drugged-out prostitutes had the right to say no.

He ambled over to the little group, the whiskey bottle dangling loosely from his left hand. He smiled as he approached and tipped the brim of his hat up.

"Boys," he said, nodding to the men.

"Get back to your stool, old man," the one – he of the stuck zipper – said warningly . He did a double take at Nick and scowled. "Whatever the hell you are, this ain't any of your business."

Privately, Nick agreed. Still… he glanced at the girl. Her eyes were wide, and she was plainly terrified. Up close, she looked younger than he'd first thought. Maybe twenty. Maybe not.

"I'm pretty sure the lady isn't interested in whatever you've got planned," he said.

"Really? Ain't that too bad. Happens we've already paid for our time, so I guess she's gonna just have to suck it up." He laughed at his own joke and the others joined in.

Nick kept his smile. "Looks to me like she's changed her mind," he said mildly. "Maybe you'd better see about getting your money back."

The men looked at each other. "That ain't happening, pal. Now beat it, or you'll wish you had."

Two of them were carrying, Nick decided: the one holding her hair had a blousy shirt on, unbuttoned and hanging loose over an undershirt and not quite masking something tucked into his waistband. Stuck Zipper had something tucked into his pants at the back and either a short blade or a small back up piece on his ankle, under his slacks. There were jackets hanging over chairs at the table where they'd been sitting, and the one holding her arms glanced over there. Something in a pocket, Nick figured. He slid over a step to put himself between them and the jackets and turned, letting his coat fall open to reveal the butt of his revolver poking out of the shoulder holster under his arm.

"We can do this the easy way," he told them. "Or the hard way. And the kind of day I've had, I'm okay with the hard way."

The leader snarled, letting go of his zipper and reaching behind his back. Nick flipped the whiskey bottle underhanded at him. The man slapped it away with his other hand and as he did, Nick stepped in and kicked him hard enough between the legs to lift him bodily off the ground. He screamed, high and thin, the homemade pipe pistol he'd been reaching for falling from suddenly nerveless fingers. Nick kicked it away as he turned, drawing his own gun. Blousy Shirt's hand was coming out and there was a piece in it. Nick brought his barrel down on the man's wrist, feeling the bone crunch, then up again to crack hard against the side of his head. The man collapsed backwards, stumbling into the other two and sending them all crashing to the floor. Stuck Zipper was on his hands and knees puking, but reaching for his ankle. Nick stomped down on his hand then added a kick in the belly for good measure. A rib cracked and Stuck Zipper went over with a shriek, then shrieked again as he struck his mangled hand on a table leg.

Released, the girl scrambled away, fetching up against the wall where she knelt, shivering. Nick turned to cover the group on the floor. The one he'd hit was in a daze. The other two were trying to scramble to their feet. He brought up his revolver, thumbing back the hammer with a decisive "click". They stopped moving.

"Jesus, dude," one said, raising his hands. "We weren't gonna hurt her, just play a little. For God's sake don't shoot."

Nick risked a quick glance back at the bar. No sign of the bartender. That was good. There was no reason to think he'd take Nick's side, and he didn't need another gun behind him. He turned a bit so he could cover the bar. That put the front door behind him, but the bartender had gone out the back, which was presumably how he'd return. Nick bent down quickly, scooping up the two fallen guns and relieving Stuck Zipper of his hideout piece. It was a nice one, a little Derringer, tiny, but well-taken care of and lethal at close range. Nick's, now.

Straightening up, he motioned at the girl. "Get some clothes on," he said. "It's time we found you a new line of work."

"Please, mister," she whispered, her arms wrapped around herself. "I just wanted something to eat. I weren't gonna do nothing. The man said all I had to do was dance a little, maybe take off my clothes. I don't hardly remember anything after that."

"Nobody move," said a new voice from behind Nick, in the direction of the front door, "or I'm going to start blowing off heads."

Nick froze, his weapon still raised.

"Hands up, all of you. You, too, stranger. And you, Leroy Pratt, didn't I tell you what would happen if I saw you in here again?" Nick turned his head as a woman came around into his field of view. She was short, not much over four feet tall and almost as wide, with a round face and short-cropped, black hair poking out from under a wide-brimmed Stetson hat. She had a combat shotgun over her shoulder and on the breast of her uniform jacket was a large, silver star.

Nick raised his hands. "Sheriff," he said.

She nodded. "Nick Valentine, I presume. Matty at the office gave me your message. You can put your hands down. Find that girl some clothes while I sort out this mess." She prodded Stuck Zipper with her foot and held out a pair of handcuffs. "Give me your hand, Pratt. The other one, you idiot. The one without the broken fingers." He put out his good hand and she locked a cuff onto it. "Shorty," she called to one of the others. "You're next. Get over here." In a couple of minutes she had the whole group handcuffed together. About then the bartender came back, and a certain amount of excitement ensued after which he, too, was sporting handcuffs. And a large black eye.

"I told you what happens if you mess with me, Frolick," the sheriff said. "Girl here says she was drugged, held against her will."

"She's lying," he spat from where he sat on the floor propped up against the jukebox, his hands cuffed behind him.

"She ain't. You're lying. And like I told you: I don't care if you have whores in here; it's a free country. But this ain't the first time you've pulled something like this. You slipped her something in a drink, right? I take a blood sample down to the lab, what's it going to tell me?" She waved off his protests. "Keep your lying mouth shut. I'm closing you down. Three weeks. That's how long it's gonna be before the judge'll get a chance to hear your case, so that's how long you're gonna sit in my jail. If you're lucky, he'll just let you off with a fine.

"You can't do that to me. My business will be ruined."

"No it won't and yes I can. Now shut up, or your court date's gonna be three months instead of three weeks."

The girl was sitting on a chair by the stage, wrapped in a ragged bathrobe Nick had found thrown in a corner next to some even worse rags he assumed were her clothes. Those he'd left. She was wide-eyed and staring. She seemed to have shaken off the worst effects of whatever she'd been given, but her face was gaunt and pinched, and she was filthy. Her dark hair hung in greasy tangles around her face and there were traces of half-healed scrapes and bruises wherever her skin showed.

"What's your name, girl?" the sheriff said, turning to her.

"Mona," the girl answered almost inaudibly. "Mona Everstreet."

The sheriff took her by the chin and tilted her head up. Her look softened. "You've had a rough time of it, haven't you, honey?" She let her go. "I don't believe you're from around here."

The girl shook her head. "No, ma'am, I come down from Sawyers. We have a farm by there."

"That's a long walk. Where's your people?"

"Dead, I think. Papa for sure. I saw him go down. I don't know about the others. Please, ma'am, I'm hungry. I ain't eaten in a while. Man said he'd feed me."

The sheriff pursed her lips. "I got to haul this lot back to the jug and do up the paperwork. Valentine, you wanna help out, you could take her next door to Mother Kelly's. Tell her I said to put any charges on my tab. And stay there until I get back; I'm going to need a statement from both of you. We can talk about your missing person then, too."

-OOO-

Mother Kelly herself came at the news of Nick's arrival, hurrying down the stairs as she belted on a surprisingly ordinary-looking terry-cloth housecoat. He was half carrying the girl, who was swooning from hunger and shock.

"What on earth have they done to this child?" she demanded. She took the girl in her arms and led her to a couch, snapping orders all the while. "Irene, go fetch the doctor, and go to the kitchen and tell Clara I need a bowl of soup. Just broth, mind, and a few of those crackers. Poor thing looks like she hasn't eaten in days. Amy, make up Maria's old room and find some clean clothes that will fit. And get a bath running."

"But Mother," Amy said, "The Reverend's due any minute, and you know I'm the only one he'll go with."

"Well, he'll just have to live up to his vows this week. Do him good to practice what he preaches once in a while. And get my brushes while you're at it. And somebody bring brandy."

"For the girl?"

"For me, idiot. Now move."

The doctor arrived twenty minutes later. The girl, Mona, was just finishing her soup. When it arrived, she had lifted the bowl in both hands, plainly intending to drink it down in one draft. Mother Kelly stopped her.

"Slowly now, girl," she said, "You eat it like that, it'll come right back up again. Your stomach's too empty. Eat like this." She spooned up a bit of the broth and held it out for Mona to drink. Then another. Then she took the spoon herself and ate, slowly but steadily, punctuating it with bits of dried cracker dipped in the soup to soften it.

The doctor was a stern-looking older woman in a shapeless cardigan and long skirt, with grey hair pulled up into a tidy bun and glasses perched on the end of her nose. She had a leather satchel in her hand and the pockets of her sweater bulged with odds and ends.

"Another one of your waifs, Maude?" she said, looking the girl over. "Do you have something I can use as an examining room?"

"Show her, one of you," Mother Kelly said, helping Mona to her feet. "Afterwards, help Amy get her into the bath and get her cleaned up. Look out for lice. And burn that robe she was wearing." She turned to the doctor. "Come find me in my office after you're done. C'mon, Valentine. You can give me the story on this while we wait."

The sheriff arrived just as Nick was finishing his account, pushing her way past the girl who opened the door to announce her. "Maude," she said with a nod, plopping herself down in the chair beside Valentine.

Mother Kelly smiled across the desk. "Nick was just telling me his story," she said.

"Was he? Well now he can tell it to me, too." She pulled a tattered notebook from an inside pocket and hunted around until she found a stub of pencil. "So? From the beginning."

Nick recounted the events one more time. It was a story quickly told. The sheriff made a few notes then flipped her notebook shut.

"Pretty much like I figured," she said. "I shook a few more details out of Frolick. Girl he was expecting never showed, so when this one walked in looking for a handout, he figured he'd make do. Got her high enough so she wouldn't care about whatever sordid shit the paying customers had in mind. Must have miscalculated the dosage." She made a face. "He ain't evil, Frolick, he just don't have much of a conscience. I'm gonna padlock his bar while he's in custody, though. That'll put a good-sized dent in his finances, on top of what the judge decides. Dan Frolick might not understand right and wrong very well, but he is mighty sharp when it comes to a balance sheet. He'll get the message."

"What about the others?" Nick asked.

"Pratt and the boys? I let 'em go. Shit kicking you handed out was probably a better lesson than anything the judge would give 'em anyway. Might teach them a lesson, too, although I doubt it. Them boys are the definition of stupid. But you might give me their guns back, if you don't mind. "

Nick made a face. "I'd hate to get a bullet in the back from out of a dark alley."

She pursed her lips. "I don't imagine you'll get any more trouble from that lot. But I'll hold on to the guns for a while before I give them back. That okay? You ain't staying here long, I don't imagine."

"Sure," Nick agreed. "I'll keep the Derringer, though. As a souvenir."

"Sounds good. Now tell me about this runaway of yours."

Nick handed over the guns and Lily's picture and laid out what he knew. The sheriff nodded.

"Sure, I seen her. Least, I think I did. Blue pullover, jeans, carrying a red knapsack, right? I didn't get a real close look, but there was a little blondie like this with a red knapsack on her shoulder, down at the old service station by the tracks just south of town. Maybe three, four o'clock yesterday afternoon."

"What was she doing?"

"Nothing. Sitting on a fence, kicking her feet and looking down the road. Like she was waiting for someone. No one living there right now, but it didn't look like she was getting into anything so I left her alone. "

Nick tipped his hat back and scratched his head. "Where does the road go?"

"Nowhere really. Hooks around the hill heading south a bit, then peters out into trails and eventually runs into the old Concorde Turnpike leading into Boston. But it's all wild country nowadays until you get down to the Turnpike. Closer in there's the remains of a school up top of the hill, opposite of where the fort is now. Lots of ghouls back in the day. Minutemen finally cleaned 'em out a few years ago, but people still avoid it out of habit."

"Huh." Nick got out his map and had her show him, marking the trails in before re-folding it and putting it back in his pocket. Just then there was a knock on the door and the doctor entered.

"What do you figure, Doc?" Mother Kelly asked, pouring out a glass of whiskey and sliding it across the desk.

"Malnutrition, mostly," the doctor said, pulling up a chair and raising the proffered glass. She took a healthy swallow and grimaced, then held it out for a re-fill. "I'd say by the look of her she's been sleeping rough and living off whatever she could scavenge. Maybe a couple of weeks. Maybe more. No real injuries, just a lot of cuts and bruises, and her feet are a mess from going without shoes. No outward sign of radiation, but you never know. You're out in the wild, drinking stream water, you're definitely going to pick up some rads. Anyway, I treated her for radiation sickness and shot her full of vitamins, just to be on the safe side. Physically, what she really needs is a few days sleep and some regular meals."

"What about the rest of her?"

"Mentally, you mean?" The doctor shook her head. "Pretty bad, I think. I couldn't get a lot out of her. Sounds like raiders hit the place. She and her father were outside, everybody else was inside. She ran and hid."

"Then what?"

"Made her way here, I guess. I didn't press her for details."

"What are we going to do with her?" the sheriff asked. "I don't have a place to put her up. Maybe in one of the cells, I suppose, and just leave the door open." He looked at Mother Kelly.

"Don't be daft," the old ghoul snapped. "She'll stay here, of course. I've got a spare room and the girls will love to have someone to take care of."

The sheriff looked relieved. "Good. Any expenses, send the bill up the my office. You, too, Doc. The town'll pay for her board and medical care."

"Mighty kind of you," Mother Kelly said. "You're all welcome to stay. It sounds like things are picking up out there, and Clara should be setting up the buffet soon." The sound of voices and laughter could be heard faintly through the door, coming down the hallway from the front parlour. Someone was playing the piano and there was singing. But both the sheriff and the doctor demurred, pleading other commitments, the sheriff promising Nick she'd keep an eye out for Lily. Soon it was just Nick and the ghoul.

"What about you?" she said after the others were gone.

"Girl told the sheriff she was from a place called 'Sawyers'. Does that mean Sawyer's Crossing, the town that was hit a few weeks ago?"

"Probably. It's the only Sawyer's I know. What are you thinking?"

"Makes her probably the only survivor of the massacre. She might have seen something important. It'd be worthwhile letting the Minutemen know."

"Well, I don't disagree. But if she's as fragile as the doc says she is, I don't think handing her off to them is such a good idea right now. They're good people up at the fort, but they lack finesse. Even when they mean well. Let me see what I can get out of her. Colonel Biggs is a regular customer. I'll make sure I pass the word. "

-OOO-

It was a short walk to the old service station, technically on the south edge of Carlisle Station but far enough out to have a lonely feel to it. The trees here came very close to town, almost to the service station that was Nick's goal, while above it loomed the hill where he thought he could just make out the ruins of the school the sheriff had talked about, poking out from among the trees at the crown of the hill. Below that, the road curved southwards, rising gently to skirt the hill on its west side. There were farms down there in the valley everywhere else the forest had encroached, reclaiming its ancient dominion.

Someone had built a fence around the service station yard and put in a garden where the parking lot had been. The fence was weather beaten and falling into disrepair, and it didn't look like the garden had been tended in some time. The little patch of lawn by the front door was matted and overgrown, and a bit of green showed here and there where the first weeds of spring were poking out of the gravel path leading from the gate. The building itself was still in good repair, but clearly vacant, with the windows and doors boarded over.

He drew his revolver and checked the load, then prowled around. There were no obvious prints in the yard and the boards over the windows and doors were all intact. But a blue, woolen thread caught on the top rail of the fence showed where someone had sat. There was a cigarette butt on the ground there. Nick squatted down to examine it. Nothing distinctive, but traces of char and ash still clung to the end, meaning it was still relatively fresh.

Lily didn't smoke.

He stood up and went back up the road a little distance then worked his way down past the fence toward the forest edge. His senses were on high alert and he kept one eye on the tree line, wishing he'd asked the sheriff to come with him. But nothing happened, and just in among the trees he found a place where the snow had been trodden down next to a fallen log a few feet off the road, nicely hidden behind a tangle of bush but with a good view of the station. There were two more butts there, sticking out of the snow, and in a clear piece of muddy ground, boot prints.

He scoped out a wider area, being careful to leave no trace of himself. But there was no other indication of recent traffic. The road was asphalt, pre-War, in surprisingly good shape for its age. It was broken and potholed in places, and bulges showed where tree roots had spread beneath it. The trees themselves had encroached on it over the years so that it was half its original width, but stumps along the perimeter showed where they'd been cut back to keep the road at least partly clear.

He went over the ground again around where the watcher had sat, then straightened up, thinking.

Someone had waited here, where they could watch the road from hiding. A man, probably, from the size of the print, and a good six feet or so. He'd been here a while, long enough to smoke at least two cigarettes before Lily arrived, and for a time after, watching her. The sheriff said she looked like she was waiting for someone. So it was a rendezvous. But with who? The watcher? And why wait? Why not go meet her right away?

When he did go to here, there must have been some conversation. Enough time for him – or her – to have another cigarette. And then they left. Together? It seemed likely. "I AM HERE" the note had said.

He looked up the road to where it rose, curving to disappear among the trees. He had a couple more hours of daylight, maybe a bit more, before darkness would become a problem. He adjusted his pack and started up the road.

-OOO-


	5. Chapter 5

Nick followed the road for about a mile as it curved around the western flank of the hill that stood above Carlisle Station on the south. To his right, the trees thinned out until they reached the farmland below. Above him a narrow trail wound through the woods up toward the school. There were footprints in the damp earth where the trail met the road: a small, narrow foot in a hiking boot along with a pair of larger prints, twin to the ones he'd found before.

Lily's, he thought, looking at the smaller print. She had a way of swinging her left foot out when she walked that made for a distinctive wear pattern on the heel of her shoe. If this was all about her and her friend from the bar running off to play "house" for a couple of days, he was going to feel like ten kinds of fool walking in on them. Still, it didn't make much sense. Why not just rent a damned hotel room? Granted, a place like this would appeal to Lily's sense of adventure. But even she would have seen how dangerous this was.

"Highland School" the sign said. Nick studied it from the shelter of the trees. It had been a good size: three stories high with a centre block and wings to either side. The roof of the north wing had fallen in and trees grew in the open spaces between the walls. The south wing was in better shape, but the walls were pocked with bullet holes and the end had partly collapsed. From when the Minutemen cleaned out the ghouls, he guessed. The centre block appeared to be intact, with the main floor windows and wide front doors securely boarded up.

There was no sign of movement. The trees here came almost up to the building and he darted across, flattening himself against the wall by the doors and listening for signs that an alarm had been raised. Nothing. Reaching out, he tried the door. The knob turned but the door itself was nailed securely shut. Same with its partner. No one had come in or gone out this way.

He went around the back. A low, cinder block building poked out from the rear of the school. "Service and Deliveries" the sign read. The rusted-out hulk of a truck was parked in front of a large overhead door, the kind that slides up and down on tracks hung from the ceiling. It was closed, but there was a window at about head height.

He waited, watching carefully. Nothing moved. Scanning the upper floors one last time, he slipped out from among the trees, crossing to the front of the parked truck then slipping around the passenger side. The door there hung open and he looked inside. It was empty. He waited, listening, then moved swiftly to the overhead door and peeked in through the window.

It was a loading bay. In the dim light filtering through the window he could see a stack of broken crates jumbled up in a corner next to a rusted pallet jack. There was a loading dock against the far wall with a set of double doors beyond it, and a workbench next to where a short flight of steps led to an open door. Otherwise, it looked empty.

There was a button. "Ring for service", it said. Instead, he slipped his fingers under the door and heaved. To his surprise it lifted easily, the guide wheels moving soundlessly in their tracks as if freshly oiled. He was a target then and he knew it, standing there silhouetted by the light streaming in behind him. But no shots came. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Now he could see something he hadn't before. Tracks – men and horses all jumbled together with marks where several bedrolls had been spread out in one corner. And blood. Lots of it, pooling across the floor in front of the workbench.

Nick had seen people bleed out before. Someone had died here.

-OOO-

"No, Mr. Valentine. Not even for you. I'd help if I could. I've got daughters of my own. But there's been fighting up north and I've got refugees pouring in by the truckload. I'm going to need every gun I've got, and then some."

Nick cocked his head. "Same folks as Sawyer's Crossing?" he asked.

The garrison commander shot him a look. "How do you know about that? No, don't tell me. Anyway, it's not. Looks like some of the Green Mountain gangs moving down, pushing the locals in front of them. Which probably means something's pushing them. Which might be the Sawyer's people, yes. I've got rangers out with orders to take prisoners. If we find any, maybe we'll get some answers. Until then, your guess is as good as anyone's."

There was a knock at the door and an orderly stuck his head in. "Colonel, sir – Mother Kelly sent one of her girls up. There's a civilian down there, up from DC. Says he's looking for this character here." He pointed at Nick. "Won't say his business, but it sounds like he's pretty upset."

The commandant sighed. "Tell them Mr. Valentine is just leaving." He turned back to Nick. "Unless you can see in the dark, there's nothing you can do about this until morning. Even then, I can't release any of my people to help you. The best I can do is let you stock up at the armouries. I'm sorry it can't be more."

It was Jack waiting for him in Mother Kelly's office. He was dressed in Gunner fatigues and harness. A long-barrelled .44 hung at his hip and a weapons bag was propped up in the corner. Mother Kelly met Nick at the door, an alarmed look on her face. The whorehouse was uncharacteristically quiet, its clientele summoned hastily back to the fort by a runner.

"Jesus, Jack," Nick swore, looking past her. "Are you trying to get yourself killed, rigged out like that?"

"Screw that," he grunted, getting up to meet him. "No one here's seen a Gunner in twenty years. Besides, we're a long way from Quincy." He gripped Nick's hand. "Now where the hell's my daughter?"

"I take it she didn't come home?"

"She did not."

"Damn." He hadn't really been expecting it, but still. Quickly, he outlined what he knew. "The blood was still sticky in parts, so at a rough guess, maybe two or three days since it happened."

"What about Lily?"

Nick shook his head. "No sign of her. Nor a body, either. Only this." He held up a spent shell casing he'd found near the blood pool.

Jack took it, looked it over. "A .38," he said, giving it back. "So maybe they went in and whoever was there jumped them. Lily gets off a shot, kills one. The others over-power them, tie them to a horse, maybe, and they ride away." He took a deep breath. "Or someone else had a .38 and that's Lily's blood on the floor."

"Maybe. But I didn't find any bodies buried nearby."

"Yeah, but they wouldn't, would they? Not if they were lying low." Jack's expression was unreadable. "Who were they?" he finally said.

"Well, that's Exhibit B, as we used to say." Nick took a short piece of wood out of his pocket. He'd taken it off the arm of a desk he found in a second floor classroom during the frantic search he'd made of the building. Someone had waited there, watching out the window. Although the symbol carved into the wood was ancient, the carving itself had been done recently.

"I don't get it," Jack said, looking at it. "Some kind of 'X' with the ends bent over. What does it mean?"

"It's called a 'swastika'," Nick said. "It's very old. Old even before the War. Buncha guys who thought they were gonna rule the world. It turned out badly for them in the end, but it was a near thing. Nazis, they used to call them."

Jack grunted. "Never heard of 'em. What would they be doing here? And if they were the Sawyer's Crossing people – " Nick had told him about the raid – "why would they have taken this Garrick with them? I thought they only kept the women?"

"That's a good question," Nick said. "I propose we ask them when we find them."

Jack's upper lip twitched. "I propose we do."

-OOO-

Carlisle Station was buzzing. The town was bursting with refugees. A tent city had been erected just east of town and there was noise and confusion everywhere. The sheriff, busy sorting out a dispute involving a pair of hopelessly tangled wagons, gave Nick a harassed nod. The doctor, working at a makeshift field hospital outside the church, saw him and smiled thinly before turning back to the child she was treating.

Whoever they were, they'd been hit hard. Nick saw gaping wounds and shattered limbs, and the empty stares of people still trying to process the catastrophe that had swept over them. The air was filled with the moans of the wounded and the sound of weeping.

The Minuteman commander had been as good as his word, allowing the two men to re-stock from the post's supplies. Jack's duffel bag, meanwhile, had disgorged a sniper rifle ("I hit up Antonio on the way out") and Nick's combat shotgun, along with extra ammunition and a small crate of fragmentation grenades. And one other thing.

"Huh," Nick said, handling the small, football-shaped object gingerly. "I forgot I still had one of these." He put the micro-nuke back into its case. "A little dangerous without a launcher. Still…" he paused, remembering, "…a handy thing to have in a negotiation." He slipped it into his pack and adjusted his bandoleers of ammunition. He hated carrying this much weight, but he supposed it couldn't be helped.

He also had Leroy Pratt's little Derringer strapped to his ankle. It was a beautiful piece, .22 calibre and less than five inches from barrel to tip. A two-shot, with over-under barrels that flipped open to reload. A collector's item, worth hundreds of caps to the right buyer. He wondered how it ended up with a loser like Pratt.

Night had long since fallen. The moon had risen, but there was no question of taking up the trail until morning. Jack was exhausted in any case. He'd left Jamaica Plain when Annie's message reached him and ridden directly here, stopping only to pick up his gear and change horses. Nick left him sleeping at Mother Kelly's and went out to see if the sheriff needed an extra pair of hands.

It was midnight when he got back. The big house was dark, the curtains pulled closed and the door locked. He knocked, then knocked again. Finally it opened a crack and the muzzle of a pipe pistol poked out at him.

"Who's there?" a woman's voice asked. Amy, he thought.

"It's me. Nick Valentine." There was a pause then the door closed, followed by the sound of a chain being unlatched. The door swung wide.

"Come in," she said. Her weapon was lowered, but she held it in a way that suggested she knew how to use it. He entered and she closed the door behind him, shooting the bolt and re-setting the chain. One of the other girls stood a few feet down the hallway leading to the back of the house. She, too, was armed.

"Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she said, leading him into the parlour where the pair had been playing cards by lantern light. "It's been very quiet. There was a little commotion earlier but Mother chased them off."

"And Jack?"

"Slept right through it."

"Can we get you anything, Mr. Valentine?" the other one said. "Mother's sleeping, but I know she would want to be woken if you asked."

"No, that's fine. What I really need is whiskey and somewhere to power down for a few hours. I'm about done in."

"You can have my room," Amy said. "I'll sleep down here." She took a fresh bottle from the bar and lit a candle from the lantern, then took him up the darkened stairs to a room on the second floor, one of several leading off a long hallway. It was small, but comfortable, with a double bed and wardrobe, and a small vanity in front of the window next to an ornate, full-length mirror.

He paused, looking around. "Miss - "

"Call me Amy."

"Amy. I don't need a bed, just somewhere flat and out of the way. I don't want to put you out."

She smiled, almost shyly. "No, please," she said. "I'd be honoured to have you stay here. Mother speaks very highly of you."

"Well, okay then."

She set the bottle and glass on the vanity. "If that's all you need, I'll be off. I promised Natalie I'd take the first watch with her."

"Mother Kelly has you standing watches?"

"All night. It's very exciting." She giggled, and her eyes sparkled in the light of the candle. She stopped, then looked at him sideways. "I could come up later, if you wanted."

"No, thanks," he said. "I've got a busy day tomorrow. But I appreciate the offer."

"Good night, then."

"Wait - " he said. But she was gone. _Mother speaks very highly of you._ He wanted to ask what that meant, exactly. He'd had a certain amount of celebrity – some would call it notoriety – after the fall of the Institute. But that was long ago. Of course, given the right circumstances, ghouls could be practically immortal. But like the mysterious Meredith, he did not recall having met anyone named Maude Kelly.

Nick lay back, closing his eyes and initiating shut down. It was a bit like walking through the house switching off lights on the way to bed. With the last one, darkness enfolded him. And he dreamed.

-OOO-

There was a girl sitting in the desk in front of him. The air in the room was thick and stifling despite the open window, and a voice droned on endlessly from the front of the class. He ignored the voice and focussed on the girl. She turned toward him. Her eyes were pale blue, serious and thoughtful, her skin smooth like white alabaster and her black hair was cut short and held back with a barrette in the shape of a flower. She smiled and mouthed his name, and in that moment something changed, and where there had been blue eyes now he saw dark ones, thick-lashed and flashing, in a woman's face with olive-tanned skin and long hair, black and full, falling down in waves around it. And he remembered how her hair felt beneath his hands, thick and soft, the tips of it brushing back and forth against his skin, and the way her lips tasted and the feel of her body moving above him.

But no… He recoiled in horror at the image. For it was Ellie sitting there. Of course it was Ellie. In her new dress and the brand new shoes he'd made her wear that first day of school: the shiny leather ones he'd bought at Fallon's with the buckle on top, the ones that had mysteriously disappeared on the way home. He'd taken the hint, and she'd gone back to her beloved sneakers.

"You'll walk me to school again tomorrow, right?" she said anxiously, turning all the way around in her seat to face him. "And wait while I go in? The others won't make fun of me? Will they?"

He smiled at the memory. "Just be yourself." That's what he'd told her, all those years ago. And she had, to the extent of knocking out one of Nelson Latimer's front teeth after the latter – two years and thirty pounds her senior – made a crack about her "Robot Dad". Long dead now, Latimer, killed in a drug deal gone wrong, the damned fool.

He pulled himself back from his thoughts and looked into her pale blue eyes. She laughed, and suddenly he saw those other eyes looking out at him: the dark eyes with the thick lashes. He recognized them finally, and his heart sang, like a sensation of returning to a place once loved and then forgotten. And then they were gone and there were others, staring at him from a face made ancient by grief and the passing years, and he remembered the little house by the mill stream and the young bride who had grown old as she watched death take each of her children, one by one. Memory filled him and overflowed and rushed away and was gone and he awoke in the grey dawn with a name he could not recall on his lips.

-OOO-

The girl from Frolick's was finally awake and Mother Kelly let them talk to her. The raiders had surprised them, she said, appearing suddenly from out of the trees in the early dawn. She had been milking, her father returning with the emptied pails, when they jumped him. One held his arms while the other stabbed him to death. They hadn't seen her, and she'd fled out the back door of the barn and into the woods, hiding in a hollow under the roots of an old tree that had been a play fort when she and her sister were little. There she'd waited, shivering in the darkness as the first shouts of alarm drifted up from the town below, followed by gunfire and the sound of explosions. It hadn't lasted long. By mid-morning, the final mopping-up was over and there was silence.

Then the screaming began. It lasted considerably longer.

She stayed hidden there for five, terror-filled days until hunger and thirst finally forced her out. It had rained on the second day and she survived by licking at the water trickling down along the roots from the tree above. The house was ransacked and empty. Her father's body still lay in the yard where he'd fallen, food for the crows and wild dogs. Her mother and sister were gone. The scene was the same at the neighbours' farm, a mile or so away. She didn't dare approach the town. Blinded by grief and dizzy with hunger, starting at every noise and terrified the raiders would find her, she fled, making her way eventually to Carlisle Station.

She hadn't gotten much of a look at the attackers. But she recognized the swastika when Nick showed it to her.

"Yes … I saw that," she said dully. "The one who killed Papa had it on his forehead." Her voice broke at the memory and she did not resist when Mother Kelly took her into her arms, shooing the two men out of the room.

They made a quick breakfast – coffee and biscuits for Jack and a long swallow of whiskey for Nick – while going over Nick's map.

"Let's say these bent cross characters are the ones ultimately responsible for this new crowd of refugees," Jack said. "As well as the raid on Sawyer's. If the Green Mountain gangs are pushing south east, that means our bad guys are coming in from farther to the north west. Maybe here." He indicated a mountainous part of what used to be upstate New York, sandwiched between Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario."

"Could be," Nick agreed. "Pretty rough country up that way. Lots of wilderness even before the War, and not much news out of there since. There's another possibility, though." He pointed farther north, across the St. Lawrence River, into the old Canadian province of Quebec. "The girl said she couldn't understand what they were saying. Used to be lots of french-speakers over the border there, before the War. I imagine there still are."

"Huh. Didn't we pacify Canada back in the day?"

Nick laughed. "Pacified might not be the right word. More like 'garrisoned'. Our polite neighbours to the north didn't turn out to be so polite after all. Mexico was nearly as bad. Didn't help us against the Chinese that we'd turned all our borders into war zones."

"Great," Jack said, folding up the map and handing it back. "We're being invaded by Canada."

Nick nodded. "Looks like a possibility."

Mother Kelly came out onto the porch to see them off.

"You've got to warn them up at the fort," Nick told her. "Tell them the same people who hit Sawyer's have been watching Carlisle Station. Could be precursor to an attack."

"I will," she said. She held his gaze. "You be careful, Nick Valentine. Don't go getting yourself killed out there."

"I won't."

"I mean it. Come back to me this time."

A cold shiver ran down his spine and he wanted to ask what she meant. But Jack was waiting and there was no time.

It was a short hike to where Nick had found the riders' tracks where they cut the main road just past the school. They stopped and Jack scanned the road up and down, then shrugged out of his pack and handed it and his rifle to Nick. He hunkered down to examine the tracks more carefully, then stood up and picked something off a branch, looking at it closely before flicking it away. He disappeared into the trees in the direction the riders had come from. Time passed. Finally he came back.

"Six horses," he said. "One of them riding double and another led by a rope. Plus I found some blood smear. My guess is that's your dead guy, tied across a saddle. Or girl." He pointed south. "They went that way."

A sense of hopelessness had come over Nick while he waited. "Sheriff said she saw Lily at the service station on Sunday," he said. "That gives them a two day lead. They could be anywhere by now."

"Maybe not so bad as that," Jack answered. He shouldered his pack and picked up his rifle. "It rained here late Sunday night. I asked. That means these tracks were made since then. I'd say more like a day, day and a half. Plus, riding double like that is going to slow them down, especially if they stick to the woods. It's still a hell of a lead, but it gives us a chance."

He was talking as they walked. "Assuming they're heading home, they'll leave the road as soon as they feel safe and try to loop around. It's too open here - " he pointed down into the valley below them where a stream ran through open farmland, "- but the woods start up again about a mile farther down. I'll bet they turn off and hug the treeline until they get past those farms, then start working their way west and north. Mostly west, if they're smart, given all the hullaballoo around here."

It was as he'd said. The trail turned suddenly and plunged downhill, looping around to the south of the open fields and staying just under the eaves of the forest. Once past the farms, the trail kept to the woods, avoiding open country and forcing the riders to move slowly. Nor did they seem to have been in any particular hurry. The trail meandered, like a dog nosing along off-leash, turning off to follow this scent or that and frequently stopping altogether as if to investigate something more thoroughly. Hills were a particular favourite, and the trail often led to the top of a promontory and straight back down again.

"They're mapping," Jack said at one point. "This is a scouting party. It's like you said – they're planning an invasion."

This area had all been rural before the War, but thickly populated. There were signs of habitation everywhere: traces of ruined buildings swallowed by the returning forest, the destroyed remnants of a village, burned and overgrown, and once a short stretch of open highway running through a stony notch in the hills. On it were the rusted-out remains of automobiles jammed bumper to bumper, caught in flight the day the bombs fell. Skulls, bleached white by the passing years, grinned out at them through the broken windows. Nick looked in at one. A family, he thought: two adults, three children. And a small dog, its tiny bones mingled with the slightly larger ones in the back seat. Even now you could see the marks of the firestorm that had raged through here, trapping them in their cars and roasting them alive. He shuddered.

Nick, who prided himself on his own woodcraft, found himself envying the ease with which Jack kept to the trail, and the near-total silence in which he moved through the dense woods. It was little short of miraculous, in fact, and he commented on it.

Jack shrugged off the compliment. "Tracking a butterfly in flight, that's a miracle," he said. "Anyone can follow six horses through a forest if they keep their eyes open."

They travelled through that whole long day, never stopping, barely speaking. They came across a campsite late in the afternoon at a place where several roads once met. There had been a roadside tavern there next to a service station and a little ice cream stand before the war, Nick remembered. All gone now, destroyed by fire and the ruins almost completely obliterated by time. The raiders had camped in a sheltered hollow. They gave the camp a cursory examination then kept on.

Nightfall found them outside the ruins of Lancaster. They made a cold camp there in the shelter of a fallen tree and were up and moving again with first light.

The second day was much the same as the first. They travelled in silence, saving their energy for the march and eating and drinking on the move. Nick could feel the strain on his aging body parts. Already he'd had to engage his auxiliary power circuits and his damage control systems were making worried noises about the state of a number of major and minor bodily functions. He was eating as he moved, stripping handfuls of leaves and the remains of last year's berries and anything else he could reach off the trees and bushes they passed. The little atomic furnace in his belly could handle anything organic, converting it into power for his systems. But it took more juice nowadays to keep him going than it used to, and even with the new plates, his batteries held less and drained faster.

He fished a half-empty bottle of whiskey out of his pack and drained it. His body gulped hungrily at the sudden surge of energy. He hated getting old. He looked over at Jack; the strain was telling on him, too. His face was flushed and his jacket was wet with sweat, and he was breathing heavily. But he moved steadily, one foot after another. Slowly, bit by bit, the hunters were closing on their quarry.

Early afternoon, found them just past the ruins of Leominster. Fire had destroyed parts of it and the forest had grown in on every side, but a pair of church towers still poked out between the trees. The riders had given the town a wide berth, and Jack and Nick, following them, kept a wary lookout for feral ghouls.

Just past the town, the trail turned onto what remained of a wide highway.

"The old New England Interstate," Nick commented. "Eight lanes of blacktop, all the way from Boston up into New York. Prettiest drive in the country, they used to call it, back before they added all those extra lanes."

Here, too, the relentless patience of the forest had erased much of man's handiwork. The trees had long since grown to the edge of the road and begun spreading across it, the forest sending little tendrils of itself out along every crack and in every pothole. What little asphalt could be seen was humped and riven by tree roots, and the road was mostly blanketed by a thick cover of leaves and drifted-in topsoil. Here, too, were cars: the rusted remnants of a population in desperate flight. The roadway was basically just a place where the tree cover was thinner than elsewhere. Travel would be faster here than in the forest proper, but not by much.

The shadows were beginning to lengthen when they came onto the next raider camp, in a sheltered spot at the foot of a hill. There had been houses here once, along a loop of road tucked into a cleft in the hillside. Most were gone, eaten by the forest and obliterated by a long ago mudslide. The riders had camped here in a small clearing concealed by a stand of bush right against the base of the hill.

It was Nick who heard the drone of flies and smelled the faint, but unmistakable odour of decomposition.

"Something's buried here," he said, and fear seized his heart.

Freshly-turned earth made a long, narrow mound beneath a tall elm tree. The two men looked at each other, then fell to their knees and began digging frantically with their hands. The ground was soft, and they soon uncovered the head and shoulders of a body, wrapped in a blanket and tied with rope. Nick sagged with relief. Whoever it was, it was too big to be Lily. He worked to uncover the rest of it while Jack used his knife to slice open the wrappings.

The stranger had been tall in life, blonde-haired to judge by his beard but with his head shaved and his arms and chest covered in tattoos. He'd been dead for at least a couple of days, and his shorts were crusted with blood. Easing them back, Nick could see the wound, just inside the inner thigh, high up near the groin. The bullet had nicked the femoral artery; death would have followed in minutes.

Jack sat back on his haunches. "Now we know who's blood we found in the garage," he said.

Nick had been feeling around with his hand in the soft dirt. Now he stopped, and his expression was unreadable.

"Jack," he said. "There's another body under here."

-OOO-

11


	6. Chapter 6

"Get a note from your mama, little girl," Lily muttered to herself. "Get a not from your mama. Your _mama._ " Her lips twisted into a sneer made of equal parts shame and anger. "You _bastards_."

Lily sat on the fence in the sunshine by the old service station, replaying the scene at the recruiting station over and over again in her head; hearing again the Minuteman officer's humiliating dismissal and the snickers from the little group of boys in line behind her. On the way here, she'd imagined how the scene would play out in a dozen different ways. Outright dismissal hadn't been one of them, and it left her dumbfounded and speechless. Now she made up a string of clever responses, the things she should have said, each more crushing than the last and ending with a stunning display of gunmanship that left no doubt in their minds as to her suitability as a recruit.

It was wonderfully satisfying daydream which nonetheless left her completely unsatisfied.

"I'll show them," she muttered, kicking at the air as she waited in the sunshine for Garrick to show up. Running into Garrick, the recruit she'd met at the Dugout, had been the one good thing that happened today. Literally ran into, actually, as she stormed around the corner coming out of the recruiting station. He'd been very apologetic as he helped her up off the ground and brushed the mud off her jeans. And equally apologetic about his behaviour at the Dugout that night, which was nice. Plus he'd been wearing a sleeveless shirt and tight jeans that showed off his physique to good effect and tickled her in an interesting way.

More importantly, he told her he'd been transferred to a ranger base for training and offered to take her with him.

"You don't want to sign up here anyway," he told her over a beer in a little café down the block. "This is for the regular grunts. You wanna be a doughboy, march in the ranks and spend your enlistment doing garrison duty, sure. But the real action is out over the frontier. Rangers are _la crème de la crème_ of the service; the eyes and the ears. Sure, it's dangerous. But what isn't? No guts no glory, that's what my Pops always says."

"Was he a Minuteman?"

"Pops? Oh, yeah, sure. He's retired now, but they call him up still when there's something big going on."

"Does he know the General?"

"Does he? Hell, yeah. They go way back. My Pops saved the General's life lots of times. I can't talk about it, account of it's all top secret. But when there's a job to do, it's our door the General comes knocking on."

Lily was impressed in spite of herself, and found herself opening up to Garrick, telling him about her troubles with Nick and her mother, and the growing restlessness inside her.

"I just feel like there has to be something more," she finished.

"There is!" He leaned across the table and took her hands. "People like you and me, we can't be tied down to a routine. That's for the squares and the stay-at-homes. They're the kind of people folks like us were made to protect."

"That's what I think, too."

"Well, then, why don't you come with me to the ranger station and sign up there? It's just out of town a ways. Besides, it's a nice day for a walk in the woods." He grinned at her and his eyes sparkled.

"And have them tell me I need permission from my mother? I don't think I can go through that twice in the same day."

"Yeah, but it won't be that way. They know my Pops there. I'll put in a good word. Once they get a chance to talk to you, there's no way they'd turn you down."

"Really?" She smiled at him. "Do you really think so?"

"I know so. They'd be fools, and the Rangers aren't fools. Listen – I've got some loose ends to clean up. What say I meet you in a couple hours? There's an old service station at the very south edge of town by the old railway tracks. You can't miss it."

-OOO-

"Face it – he's not coming. Quit fooling yourself." Lily stared up the road, back the way she'd come, willing Garrick to suddenly appear. She even closed her eyes, screwing them tightly shut then opening them suddenly. It was a habit she'd acquired as a small child when things weren't going her way and it was just as effective now. There'd been some traffic up that way a while before, but none of it had come down to where she maintained her lonely vigil, and none of it was Garrick.

The sun had moved a considerable distance in the sky by now, far enough that it was too late to head back to Concord, which meant dipping into her meagre store of caps to pay for a room for the night. With a sigh she slid off the fence and scooped up her pack.

"Hey, kid."

Lily turned in surprise, dropping her pack. Garrick stood there next to the fence a little ways beyond her. His arms were crossed across his chest. He grinned crookedly at her.

Lily frowned at him, then screwed her eyes shut , held them closed for a second then opened them again suddenly. He was still there.

"I'll be damned," she said. "It finally worked."

"What worked?" He came to her, scooping up her pack and slinging it over his shoulder.

"Nothing," she said. She frowned at him again. "Where did you come from?"

He gestured back to where the road disappeared into the woods a short distance beyond the old service station. "Just came down from the ranger station up the hill," he said. "You were looking the other way; I thought I'd surprise you. Sorry if I startled you."

"You did but it's okay. You went up there without me?"

"Sure. I figured I'd better tell them you're coming. They're excited to meet you."

"They almost didn't. I was about ready to leave. You took your time."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Everything took longer than I thought it would. You know how it is." He took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and shook two out, offering her one and lighting the other.

She refused. "Those things are bad for you," she said.

"Life is bad for you," he answered, leaning against the fence and blowing a smoke ring at the sky. "The secret is to take your fun where you can find it." He took another drag then crushed it out against the fence post and let it fall to the ground. "Speaking of which," he added, hooking a thumb back at the service station. "There's a loose board on one of the windows and an old couch in one of the offices. Ranger station's still gonna be there in a couple hours…" He raised an eyebrow and smiled lazily, letting his eyes trail down over her figure and stopping to rest on the swell of her breasts under her sweater and the curve of her hip.

Lily laughed. "Oh, you think?" She ran a finger playfully along the line of his jaw. "Maybe that'll happen, Garrick, if you're lucky. But it won't be on some ragged old couch with springs poking into my ass. And it won't be today, either. You get me to this Ranger station. After that, maybe you and me can get to know each other a little better, and we'll see how things go."

He grinned at her. "You don't know what you're missing."

She rolled her eyes, but she laughed, too. "I guess we'll see, won't we? Coming?"

-OOO-

The air was colder in the shadows under the trees. Lily pressed Garrick for information as they climbed the road leading up the hill, but a mood seemed to have fallen over him and he was taciturn to the point of sullenness. After a while, she gave up.

He led her to where the trail turned off toward the old school. She could see the ruins of it poking out from amongst the trees. It was only a short hike from there to the front of the building, but Garrick stopped some distance away.

"Wait here," he said. "I gotta get their attention, make sure they don't decide we're intruders and pick us off."

She frowned at him. "I thought you told them we were coming?"

"Just making sure. They're a trigger happy bunch." He fished a red-and-black bandanna out of his pocket and tied it around his head. "I'll be right back." And he was gone, slipping noiselessly away among the trees. She sighed and hunkered down against a tree to wait. A few minutes later he was back, appearing as if by magic next to her. She started and swore at him in a whisper. He laughed quietly and held out a hand.

"It's all good," he said. "C'mon."

He led her in a wide circle around to the back, staying under cover amid the trees. There was no real trail to follow but the undergrowth was light and they made short work of it. The forest cover thinned out at the rear of the building. Fire had passed through here once, and there were signs of fighting. A dead tree, its limbs shattered by an explosion, stood in a clearing. Just past it lay a pair of ghoul skeletons, still dressed in the tattered rags they had worn in life, their skulls partly shot away. The bones themselves were mostly disarticulated and strewn about. Lily thought some of them looked as if they'd been gnawed on. She shuddered.

When they reached the edge of the wood, Garrick motioned to her to wait. He still wore his bandanna and now he stepped out from the trees into the open. A stretch of potholed asphalt that had once been a parking lot stood between them and the building. The rusted-out remains of a delivery truck stood there on the pavement in front of an overhead door. Garrick took off his bandanna and waved it. A figure stepped out from behind the truck and there was an answering wave before whoever it was stepped back into concealment.

"That's our signal," Garrick said, motioning.

"Is all this cloak-and-dagger stuff really necessary?" Lily asked. But he didn't answer and with a shrug she followed him across the parking lot. The sign on the door read "Service and Deliveries". The guard standing behind the truck was big and shirtless. His head was shaved and he had a thick, blonde beard and tattoos running up and down his arms and across his heavily-muscled chest. A short-barrelled rifle leaned against the wall beside him and there was a long, heavy knife in a sheath at his hip. Lily smiled tentatively at him.

His eyes slid across her and he said something to Garrick in a language she didn't understand. Garrick answered in the same language, heatedly, Lily thought, and pointed at her. The other man answered, then said something to Lily and made a grabbing motion at his crotch.

Garrick yanked her away, his face flushing with anger. " _Gaspésie_ asshole," he snarled, but to himself, under his breath. The other man heard him though, and laughed roughly, then banged on the door and called out something. There was a pause, then a muffled voice answered from the other side, and Lily could hear the sound of chains rattling. The door slid upward.

Lily's eyes narrowed and she reached for Garrick's hand. "Garrick? What's going on? And what language is he speaking?" She looked behind her. The woods seemed a long way away.

"Nothing," he said. "Don't worry about it. Remy's mother dropped him too many times when he was little. Now he thinks he's funny. They all think they're funny."

"If you say so." But something that felt like small, cold, feet were walking up her spine, and with her free hand she tugged surreptitiously at the pistol on her hip to make sure it was loose in its holster.

It was dark inside after the bright sunlight, and Lily blinked while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. They were in a large, high-ceilinged room; a service garage, with a workbench against the back wall next to where a loading dock opened onto a set of closed double doors. Against the near wall, a short flight of concrete stairs lead up to a door with windows flanking it, looking down into the garage.

Whatever it had been before, it was a camp now. There were bedrolls on the floor in the corner under the stairs and a small cook stove nearby. Saddles, packs and other gear were stacked neatly in the far corner, next to where a group of horses were tied. They stamped their hooves, whickering and rolling their eyes nervously at the sudden light from outside. A man stood among them, bent over and bracing a horse's hoof against his leg while he carefully hammered new nails into a loose shoe. He was smaller and slightly built, with a dishevelled mass of long, dark hair and a wisp of a beard on his chin. He carried a knife on each hip, and he waved cheerfully at Garrick with his hammer, then frowned as he noticed Lily.

Another man, bigger and blonde like the first, stood by the door holding onto the chain that raised it. He, too, had a knife at his hip along with a holstered pipe pistol. He jerked his thumb at the stairs.

"They're up there," he said in heavily-accented English, and pointed up the stairs at the door. "And you'd better have a good reason for this. We're almost ready to move out."

"I don't need to explain myself to you, Edouard," Garrick said.

"You're right. It's Rejean who's asking. Now go."

"What's going on?" Lily demanded as Garrick started up the stairs. She pulled her hand out his grasp. "Who's Rejean? And where are they going? I thought you said this was a ranger camp. These don't look like any Minutemen I've ever seen."

"It's not a camp. Look, Lily. I… I might have mislead you a little. This is just a rest stop. The main camp's a few days travel away. I figured if I told you that in the first place, you wouldn't come. You still don't have to. Rejean is the leader here; these are his men. We'll meet him and then you can decide what you want to do. Okay? And if you don't like it, you can just leave. I promise. I'll escort you back to Diamond City myself."

"Garrick, this is starting to sound like bullshit to me."

"It's not. Trust me. Do you trust me?"

"I'm not sure I do."

"Well you'd better. And look – " he reached out his hand. "Give me your gun. They're nervous about that sort of thing here."

"My what?"

"Your gun." He snapped his fingers impatiently. "You can't just walk in there carrying a gun. Don't be a such a kid."

She shook her head. "Now I know this is bullshit. No Minuteman would ever ask for my gun." She stepped back and looked over her shoulder. Edouard was still standing by the open door, but his fingers were curled around the butt of his holstered revolver, and Remy had come up beside him, his rifle cradled loosely in his arms. The man shoeing the horse had set down his hammer and was slipping a short-barrelled carbine from a saddle-holster.

Lily drew her gun and aimed it at the bridge of Garrick's nose. "I think you'd better tell your friends to put their guns down," she said quietly.

"Lily, don't get crazy."

She thumbed back the hammer. "I mean it, Garrick. It would be a shame to spatter your brains all over that pretty hair."

"Easy, Lily," Garrick said, raising his hands. "These are friends. We're safe here." He called out something to the men in the room below, then again in a more urgent tone of voice. There was a long pause, then they reluctantly put their weapons down, including Edouard, who drew his pistol with a two-fingered grip and placed it carefully on the floor at his feet.

"That's good. Now tell them to move away from the door," Lily said. "I want them where I can see them." She jerked her head toward the work bench. She'd turned a little sideways to keep all of them in view. "And tell them in English."

Garrick complied and the three men shuffled over to where Lily had indicated. But they were grinning as they moved.

"I don't know what your game is or who these folks are, " she said, "but you and me are going to walk out of here, and no one is going to follow us or else the first person who dies is you. Is that understood? And just in case you don't think I'm serious…" She switched her aim quickly and fired, and a bottle on the workbench next to Remy disappeared in a spray of glass. The grins disappeared.

"Now," she continued as they backed out the door. "I see six horses and four people. Where are the other two?"

"Behind you," a voice said, and an arm wrapped around her in a chokehold while another grabbed her gun arm. But she dropped suddenly, slithering out of the hold and twisting around. The man behind her was older, blue-eyed and clean shaven, his skin made leathery by the sun and his dark hair greying slightly at the temples. She brought her knee up hard, and with a grunt of pain he staggered backwards, releasing her gun hand. There was movement behind her and she spun around to see Garrick reaching for her. She fired at him point blank, but as she did the newcomer hauled down her gun hand and the shot went wild, ricocheting off the concrete floor. There was a scream from across the room.

"Bitch!" It was Edouard, holding his thigh and staring down in genuine surprise. "The _maudit_ bitch!" he said incredulously. "She _shot_ me!" He collapsed, and Lily fought to bring her arm up for another shot. But heavy hands slammed her head against the concrete wall. The world swam around her, then a fist drove into her jaw and her legs buckled. She sagged, and hands wrenched her gun from her fingers. Then a boot took her in the belly and another fist hammered into the side of her head, and she went down.

-OOO-

There was shouting and a sound like bells in the distance ringing over and over again, and a panicked voice, speaking in a language she suddenly realized she understood. " _Arrêtez de saigner !_ _Arrêtez!_ " The accent was strange and hard to follow, but it was still French, and she hadn't been Mme. Curie's best student for nothing, all those years. "Stop the bleeding! Stop it!" But it wouldn't stop, and through bleary eyes Lily could see a scarlet pool bubbling out across the concrete floor from where the stricken man lay, until finally his mouth sagged open and he was still, his dead eyes staring accusingly across the floor at her.

-OOO-


	7. Chapter 7

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following work is intended for adult audiences and contains canon-typical violence, coarse language and scenes of a sexual nature which some readers may find disturbing.]

-OOO-

Angry voices poked holes in the fog surrounding her. They were arguing about something, but it was difficult for her to concentrate. The beating had gone on for a long, long time.

"I want her dead. Dead, that little bitch. He was like my brother. Rejean, you owe me. At least let me have her tongue. She won't need it anyway."

"Shut up, Remy. It's not her fault Edouard got himself shot." Garrick's voice.

"No, you shut up, you bastard _Yanqui._ " The last word was like a curse. "We should have killed you weeks ago."

"Fuck you. Take that back, or I swear – "

A laugh, hard and mocking. "You swear what? You'll kill me? Do it then. Pull the trigger. Show me you're a man."

A tired voice: "Shut up both of you. Garrick, put it away. You shame yourself. In the Gaspé, men fight with knives."

"We are not in the Gaspé."

"Clearly, that is so."

Lily shifted position painfully. She was hooded; a horse's feedbag had been pulled down over her head and it stank of barley mash and horse saliva. She was seated on the hard concrete and her arms were handcuffed behind her around a post set into the floor. They were pulled up high, forcing her upper body to bend forward and making her arms and shoulders ache from the strain.

Her captors had beaten her to the floor then surrounded her, kicking and punching her until her body was one solid ache. But there was no real damage that she could tell. Nothing seemed broken and they'd been careful not to touch her face. But it hadn't stopped until the pain finally overcame her resolve not to cry out.

Her mistake, she realized, had been in not shooting the leader, Rejean when she'd had the chance. Instead she'd been distracted by the movement behind her. Maybe it was anger at Garrick's betrayal, too, that made her want to keep the first bullet for him. Stupid, either way. Taking Rejean out would have given her a chance to get away instead of being dragged down from behind.

Not letting Rejean get behind her would have been even smarter. Not going with Garrick in the first place would have been the smartest of all. She slapped herself mentally for that, thinking about the hot little fire his big, puppy-dog eyes had kindled in her. She vowed a lifetime of cold showers if she ever got out of this.

The men were still arguing. Whatever they were speaking, it wasn't French, exactly. Or not the kind Madame taught in Diamond City, anyway. The accent was all wrong, with an unexpected rhythm and word order, and it was freely, almost randomly, mixed with English. There was also a scattering of alien-sounding words, which she would later learn came from the Mi'kmaq tongue, the language of the original inhabitants of the Gaspe Peninsula. It was odd, but she could follow it as long as she paid attention. And as long as they didn't know that, she realized, they would continue to talk freely around her.

"She is mine, Rejean. I found her. I brought her here. She is mine by right. That's the law of the Gaspé."

"We are not in the Gaspé, remember? If we were, it is you whose fate we would now be discussing. Edouard is dead because you let a woman come here with a gun. And what of the girl? What family does she have? How wide a trail did you leave for others to follow to our door, just so you could have some tail to warm your bedroll?"

"I am not stupid, Rejean. No one followed. No one saw. She is a runaway, I told you. She has an uncle in Diamond City. An old man barely this side of the grave. No one will come looking for her."

"You are still a fool, and you endanger us all. Perhaps it is your tongue I should let Remy cut out, not hers."

"You wouldn't dare. My father would cut out your heart."

"But I am the leader here and your father is far away. So we shall do as I say. And what I say is that Edouard has a brother, Baptiste, and so by law the girl belongs to him. Once he is finished with her, perhaps you can ask for her back. If you still want her after that."

"This is crap, Rejean!" There were heavy footsteps and suddenly the hood over Lily's head was torn off. Remy thrust his face into hers. His lips were pulled back and his face twisted with rage. He had a long knife in his hand and he jabbed it at her, making her wince and pull away.

"You killed him, you whore," he snarled in French, spittle spraying from his mouth. He took a fistful of her hair and Lily was shocked to realize there were tears in his eyes. "I'll be watching you. Every minute. If you make just one wrong move, I'll gut you like a pig and watch you squeal. I don't care what Rejean says. Do you understand?" He shook her by the hair. "Do you understand?"

She shook her head. "I don't know what you're saying," she answered in English. "What do you want? Garrick" –she turned her head, a pleading tone in her voice– "what is he saying?"

"Bitch!" Remy spat, but this time in English. He slammed her head against the heavy concrete post behind her, making the world spin. "You live now. But have a care. If you play a game, if you run, I catch you." He turned his knife so its edge shone in the late day sunlight coming through the window. "You see her? She is thirsty for blood. She will drink yours. But first, she will make you beg for death."

He jammed the hood back down over Lily's face. But she smiled to herself in the musty darkness. For Garrick was wrong about one thing. Nick and her father were coming for her. Of that there could be no doubt. All she had to do was make sure they found her. And to do that, she had to stay alive.

-OOO-

She listened to them as they packed up their camp. They were getting ready to move out, back to wherever they came from. Not back to the Gaspé, but to a camp somewhere in the mountains a few days away.

That they were scouts for an invasion force was obvious. Rejean was particularly annoyed with Garrick, whose mission had been to join the Minutemen and funnel intelligence back to the invaders, and who had instead managed to get himself cashiered within days.

"Why did you say that to them?" Rejean demanded. "Who cares who you share a tent with?"

"They were black," Garrick answered indignantly. "They were like apes. My father did not raise me to share a tent with apes."

"Apes!" Rejean scoffed. "When have you ever seen one? There are none in the Gaspé. But if you talk like one of those _maudit_ Purlaine there, the man at the next table will probably kill you just to shut you up. Remember that, when we finally get home."

It was Garrick's turn to laugh. "Whose money do you take, Rejean?" he jeered. "It is the Purlaine who give the orders, and the mighty Gaspésie who cower and say 'Yes master, at your command.'"

"We take the Purlaine coin, who wouldn't? And if they want us to scout out the lands of the southerners, why wouldn't we? But do you see us carving the _swastique_ into our foreheads? No. The men of the Gaspé tug the forelock to no man. And that includes your father. Maybe in Maine he is a rich trader, grown soft and fat on the backs of others. But in Rimouski, he is still just the grandson of René Bayard, who fell into the fire when he was drunk and burned himself so badly he had to piss sitting down like a woman for the rest of his life."

"My father could buy your head for a fireplace ornament if he wanted. You remember that, Rejean."

"I will, Garrick. I certainly will."

They ignored Lily as they went about getting ready to leave in the morning. There was an argument about that between Rejean and Etienne, who took care of the horses and who worried that one of them had gone lame.

"The roan," said Etienne, "she needs a few more days before she will be able to walk easily."

"We don't have a few more days. We are to meet Maxime and the others."

"Fuck him, the prick. Let him wait for us. The horse is worth two of him."

"I promised. And the sooner we get back the sooner we can collect our money and go home. Maybe there is a stone caught in the hoof. Did you check?"

"Did you shake your dick after you pissed this morning? Of course I checked. I tell you – if we leave tomorrow, she will slow us down."

"Fine. We'll go slow."

The ache in Lily's arms and shoulders was agony, and she bit her lips to keep from crying out. She was also hungry. And thirsty. She hadn't eaten since breakfast in Lexington and the smell of cooking food as they prepared their evening meal was like torture. But the worst part was her bladder. It had been hours since the beer she'd had with Garrick in the little café in Carlisle Station, and now it wanted out. She wasn't sure which was worst: the pain in her shoulders or the fear she might soil herself in front of these strangers.

The pressure in her bladder finally won.

"Please," she said, and she was shocked at how weak her voice sounded. "Please. I'm so hungry. And … I need to pee."

"Ho ho," Rejean said, coming over. "The little bird makes a cheep." He pulled her hood off and crouched down so his face was level with hers, then raised her head by the chin. He stared at her for a long moment then said in English: "What do you want, girl?"

"I want to pee," she said in a barely audible voice. Then again, stronger. "I need to pee. And something to eat. And drink. And to change position. My arms hurt."

A lamp burned on the workbench near the where the bedrolls were laid out, casting a dim light across the old garage. It was raining outside and the wind had come up, gusting in through broken window panes and causing the shadows to dance. She could only see three of them: Rejean, Garrick, and the small, wild-haired man, who must be Etienne, she realized; he of the horses.

Rejean was talking to her: "Your arms hurt. How sad for you. And you're hungry? Killing is hungry work, I know. Still, I do not know. Perhaps I'll ask Edouard and see what he thinks."

He turned his head. "Hey, Edouard," he said, calling over to where a man-sized bundle lay on the floor, wrapped in a blanket and tied with rope. "What do you think? She wants to pee. " He went over to the dead man and leaned over, cupping a hand to his ear. "What do you say, Edouard my friend? I cannot hear you."

He straightened. "Sadly, he does not answer. He is probably too busy in Hell right now, seeing old friends and warming his feet by the fire. I guess I must decide, if he will not."

"What is your game, Rejean?" Garrick demanded.

"My game?" Rejean looked astonished. "Your little girlfriend must pee, Garrick. Surely you don't want her to pee in her pants, no?" He rummaged through a saddlebag and came back with a length of chain and a thick leather collar. It was wide and heavy, and there were dark stains at the front, where it went around Lily's throat. He pulled it tight then clipped the chain into a metal loop at the back.

"The woman who wore this before, she gave me only daughters and no sons. What man can live with that? But perhaps she will give Edouard sons, now. Do you think?" He reached up and unlocked Lily's handcuffs and she gave out a little scream as her arms were released. But she glared at Rejean.

"You're a pig," she spat in English.

"And you are a spitfire. You will learn differently, in the Gaspé. Or you will not live very long." He handcuffed her arms behind her then threw the other end of the chain to Garrick. "Take her to piss. Don't let her escape." He nodded at the lamp on the workbench. "Take that with you. And Garrick?"

"Yeah?"

"Do not linger. I will come looking for you."

Garrick led her up some steps cut into the loading dock and through the double doors there. A wide hallway led toward the front of the building, doors opening off on either side, all closed. There was a narrow side hallway and at the end two doors with the words "Men" and "Women" on them. Garrick pushed her through one of the doors and followed her in. There were stalls on either side and a row of sinks at the end, but no windows and no water in the toilet bowls. The men had clearly been using it: the little room stank of urine and feces, and the toilets were overflowing.

Lily looked at the toilets. "I can't use these," she said. "They're disgusting."

Garrick just laughed. "Then pee in a corner. Or hold it for the next five days until we get to the camp."

Lily squatted down with her back to a wall and hooked her thumbs under the waistband of her jeans. She hesitated, then glared up at Garrick "You could at least have the decency to turn around," she said, but he simply put the lamp up on a shelf and folded his arms, watching her wordlessly.

With her hands bound it was difficult for her to get her jeans out of the way. But she managed, and finally was able to release the pressure in her bladder. She was conscious of his eyes on her, and her face burned.

"Are you done now?" he finally asked. She nodded mutely, but her jeans had slipped farther down her legs. She struggled, trying reach them to pull them up. Garrick took a handful of her hair and hauled her to her feet. She stumbled, falling into his arms, and for a moment they teetered on the edge of collapse. Then he regained his balance and with a sudden movement spun her around to face away from him. He jammed his body against hers, forcing her up against a sink. She could feel the cold porcelain digging into her hips and his hardness pressing into her through his jeans, trapping her.

"No," she hissed. "Rejean said –"

"Fuck Rejean," Garrick snarled, undoing his pants and pushing them down over his hips. She felt his thickening member spring free, twitching against her bare buttocks as he reached around to spread her legs.

"No, Garrick," she said quickly, feeling his fingers between her legs. "Not here. Not like this. He could come in any minute."

Garrick paused, considering. "That is wise," he finally said. "But Rejean cannot watch you forever. Our time will come." He did up his pants and pulled Lily's jeans up, then quickly reached underneath her sweater and squeezed her breasts, grinding himself against her from behind.

He picked up the lantern and yanked roughly at her chain. "Let's go."

Rejean looked up when they returned to the garage. "You took your time," he snapped in French.

"She was shy. It didn't want to come out. So sue me."

Rejean locked her chain around a railing and left her. He went to the stove and slopped stew into a bowl from the pot and poured water from a skin into another bowl, then set them down on the floor close to her.

"How am I supposed to eat like this?" she said, jerking her head toward her bound hands.

"That is your problem."

She looked daggers at him as he walked away. But hunger and thirst tore at her, and after a few minutes she shuffled on her knees across the hard concrete and bent over the stew bowl, lapping hungrily at the chunks of meat and potatoes and slurping up the broth, then licking the bowl clean, chasing every drop with her tongue. The water was warm and reeked of the leather water skin it had been poured from, but it soothed her parched throat and she finished it all.

There was gravy on her chin and as she twisted her head around to wipe it off on her sweater she was suddenly aware of silence. She looked up. They were all watching her. Even Remy and the other one – Tomas – were there, staring silently down at her. She sat back on her haunches and glared up at them.

"Well?" she said. "Did that get you off? What now? If you're going to rape me, get it over with. I'm tired." She spat her words at them, but there was a cold fear forming in the pit of her stomach and she looked at the door, screwing her eyes shut and opening them again quickly, willing it to fly open and reveal her father and Nick at the front of a squad of armed Minutemen. But there was no one. The door stayed closed and the only thing beyond it was the night. The lump of fear inside her grew.

"No one here will touch you," Rejean finally said. He glowered at the others, fixing Garrick with a particularly fierce look. "No one. You belong to Baptiste now. That is the law. Garrick – you stand first watch. Wake me in two hours. Everyone else, get some sleep."

Lily turned away from them, curling up around herself on the hard concrete floor and shivering in the cold.

The next day dawned cold and grey, the sky ragged with low-hanging cloud. A chill wind tugged at Lily's sweater, making her shiver. She was riding double with Garrick, sitting up behind him on a grey mare. Unused to the idea of a second rider, the horse pranced nervously. Garrick cuffed it and it reared. Lily, her arms still handcuffed behind her, swayed, crying out in panic and squeezing with her knees to keep from falling off backwards.

"' _Esti tabernac,_ Garrick, fool," Etienne spat, riding up beside them. "Who taught you to ride?" He looked the horse in the eye, holding her bridle and stroking her face, muttering soothing words until she calmed down. He took a carrot from his saddlebag and broke it in two, offering half to the horse and taking a bite from the other.

"What is going on?" Rejean demanded, riding up.

"Nothing," said Etienne, taking another bite of carrot. "Garrick is a fool and I ache to be home. But we knew that already. Still, you'd better tie her hands in front of her, holding onto him, or she will fall off. She will be worth nothing to Baptiste with a broken neck."

They rode in single file, Rejean leading with Remy and Etienne behind him, then Garrick and Lily, leading the horse on which Edouard's body had been tied. Silent, sharp-eyed Tomas hung back behind, watching their back trail. Once they crossed the road below the school and headed down into the valley on the other side, the trail disappeared and they were picking their way through the woods. It was slower going than Rejean would have liked. But theGaspésie were skilled woodsmen, born to the saddle and the trackless forests of the cold northlands, and the forest here was relatively light and riddled with game trails, and they made relatively good progress.

Lily concentrated on holding on. The woodland terrain forced the riders to stay at a walk, which was good. Without stirrups or the leg strength of a trained horseman, the up-and-down movement of an extended trot would have been pure misery. As it was, her legs and thighs were soon chafed raw and her back ached, adding to the dull throbbing of her bruises from the day before.

Rejean seemed to have delegated her captivity to Garrick, and in the morning he had again led her off to empty her bladder and bowels, this time in an office off the main hallway. There was a desk there with a pair of skeletons jumbled up in a corner beside it, and a thin grey light filtered in through the dirt-streaked windows. He'd taken down her pants for her this time instead of making her do it, and again he'd watched her. Only this time he'd also pulled her sweater up above her breasts, and he stared at them while she peed, and then, blushing, defecated.

After she was done she looked up at him. "How am I going to wipe myself?"

He shrugged. "I guess you don't. Now stand up and turn around. Rejean is busy breaking camp. He won't be looking for us any time soon."

Face wooden, she did as ordered. He pushed her face down against the desk , bending her over it and running his fingers down her back and up her bare thighs.

"Is this really how you want me?" she said, looking back at him over her shoulder. "With shit all over my ass?"

He grunted, then made a face. "I guess not." One of the skeletons still wore the remains of a skirt; a checked print pattern, long since faded, the fabric crumbling away. He tore off a wide strip and used it to clean her.

There was a voice from outside. It was Remy, calling for them. "Garrick? Damn you, boy, where are you? Rejean wants you."

Garrick cursed and quickly yanked Lily's sweater down and her jeans back up. "Stay here," he said and went out.

"There you are," Lily heard through the door. "What the hell are you doing out here? Where's the girl?"

"She's taking a shit," she heard Garrick answer defensively.

"And you left her alone?"

"It stinks in there. She's still chained up. She's not going anywhere."

"Well get her. It's time to go. Hurry up."

Alone inside the office, Lily leaned against the desk and breathed a small sigh of relief.

-OOO-

The riders pushed on through the day, eating strips of dried meat in the saddle and stopping only briefly to let the horses eat and drink. Etienne, who was the smallest, took the lamed horse. He mostly walked, often slipping out of sight to scout ahead. The men frequently dismounted and led the horses to give them a break. Lily was glad for these moments, for it meant she could put her feet in the stirrups and stand up in the saddle to stretch her back and legs.

One time, the horse stumbled as Garrick led it across a rocky stream bed, barely more than a rivulet and overhung by trees. Lily shrieked as the horse reared sideways, throwing her against a tree branch. A sharp end caught at her sweater, tearing out of long tuft of wool. It hung there, twisting in the light breeze, like a sign that said "Lily was here." She looked at it, blinking, and then smiled to herself. But when she turned around it was gone, plucked from the branch by Tomas who rode last, watching behind them and working to obscure the signs of their passage.

Garrick re-mounted and she rested her head on his shoulder, fighting back tears.

They camped that night in a sheltered hollow where buildings had once stood. There was a low wall of crumbling concrete next to a patch of broken pavement, and to one side a game trail led down through heavy bush to a pond that looked like it might once have been rectangular. A swimming pool, maybe, or a cistern that had fallen in. They camped there for the night, waiting until dark to light a small, sheltered fire. Supper was stew again – the usual fare, it seemed – this time with meat from a pair of mole rats Etienne brought back and some wild vegetables someone found; the many-generations-removed descendants of a garden that had once been here. It was tasty, and Lily found herself ravenously hungry. Her hands had been bound behind her again, her arms wrapped around a tree, but Garrick fed her with a spoon, then held a waterskin up for her to drink from.

Her bladder had been making urgent demands since they'd arrived at the camp, and once again her and Garrick's ritual had played out, with him watching her hungrily as she squatted against a tree some distance from the others. Her hands were still bound in front of her from the ride, and so she was able to pull down her jeans herself. Expecting the order, she also made as if to lift her sweater for him, but he stopped her.

"No," he said in a whisper. "Someone could see. It would not do. You are to be given to Baptiste; Rejean has commanded. So you are strictly 'hands off'." He grinned. "They are fussy about a woman's purity in the Gaspé. Anything that happens between us will have to be our little secret."

"My 'purity'?" She was finished and she stood up, pulling up her pants. "If you mean virginity, then I haven't been 'pure' since the seventh grade."

Garrick raised his eyebrows. "Really?" He seemed taken aback. "How many have you been with?"

"That's none of your business," she answered tartly. "Look, I don't mean I've been slutting around with half of Diamond City. But you might recall you were halfway to grabbing my tits in the middle of a crowded bar and I was halfway to letting you. You had to know I'm not some blushing virgin."

"I suppose. But for them"–he tossed his head in the direction of the camp–"it doesn't matter. You belong to the Gaspé, now. Whatever you were before is unimportant." He turned to go, jerking her chain for her to follow.

"What does that mean for you and me?" she said, coming up beside him.

"It means we'd better not get caught."

-OOO-


	8. Chapter 8

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following work is intended for adult audiences and contains canon-typical violence, coarse language and scenes of a violent and sexual nature which some readers may find disturbing.]

-OOO-

Every minute took her farther from hope of rescue. How long before they realized she was missing? What if they didn't find the note she left? But no, of course they would. Her mother had found her cigarettes that time without even half trying. She shuddered, remembering how angry she'd been. Still, the note didn't say where she was going, and there were other recruiting stations. But Howie had come to Carlisle; it was an easy guess to figure out that's where she'd go. But when? And how would they know where she'd gone afterwards? Had anyone even seen her? What if the Minutemen didn't tell them she'd been there, or didn't remember? They might not even know where to start looking.

Surely they'd find her. Nick was a detective; it was what he did. Once they did, she was confident her captors wouldn't know what hit them. Nick and the General had destroyed the Institute almost single-handedly, and her father had been a soldier before he married her mother. She'd heard them talking about it once. (It was clearly something she wasn't supposed to know, so she'd filed it away under "information to use later".) And there was always the General. A message to him would get results. There might already be an army of Minutemen out looking for her right now. It was only a matter of time.

But it had been nearly a day. If they were coming, whey weren't they already here? What if they'd gone off in a completely different direction? What if they never came? She closed her eyes. They would come. They had to come. The important thing was to stay alive for as long as it took, whatever it took.

"You're pretty quiet," Garrick said suddenly. He reached back to pat her leg. "Talk to me. I'm bored."

"I didn't know I was supposed to entertain you."

He jerked on her chain. "You might want to remember who's holding the chain and who's wearing the collar. Being nice to me is probably in your best interest."

"Really?" she sneered. "How has that helped me so far?"

They rode silently for a while. Finally she said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. "

"Whatever." He was sullen.

"No, really." She thought for a moment. "Tell me what it means, that word you call the others? _'_ Gaspayzee' or something like that?"

" _Gaspési_ e," he corrected her, putting the emphasis on the last syllable while cutting the final "ee" sound off quickly. "From the Gaspé Peninsula, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River in _la Belle Quebec_. They're from Rimouski, a little fishing town."

"And your father was from there, but he left?"

"He got sick of the stink of fish so he went to Maine, where it still stinks like fish but there's more people, better weather and more money. Now he's a rich trader and lives in a mansion, and the dirt-poor Gaspésie count the fish drying on their racks and think themselves important. My father could buy Rimouski and tip it into the river and never notice it was gone."

"But you travel with them? You take orders from Rejean? Why?"

Garrick made a face. "Pops is getting nostalgic in his old age. He decided I should go to the Gaspé and learn to be a man. He sent me to Rejean, who used to haul freight for him until he took a load of furs over a lake that wasn't as frozen as he thought. Now he owes my father more than he can pay, so he got me."

"That's too bad."

"Too bad for me. I'm stuck freezing my ass off with a bunch of ignorant Gaspésie peasants when I could be home learning the business. But if I want to inherit, I have to do this. So here I am."

"Do you have a girlfriend? Or – a wife? Is there a Mrs. Garrick and bunch of little baby Garricks waiting for you to come home?"

Garrick laughed carelessly. "Nothing like that. Sometimes an angry father will come yelling that I got his little slut of a daughter in trouble, but it's all about the money. Pops throws a few caps at them and they go away. It would hardly do to let his precious name go to some whoring peasant girl, would it?"

Lily didn't answer, and Garrick turned his head to look at her. "What if there was? Did you fancy yourself in the role?"

"I suppose…" she said slowly, "I suppose if I had a choice, I'd rather be Mrs. Garrick in a big house in Maine than Mrs. Baptiste drying fish at the North Pole."

"You would at that," he agreed sombrely. "'But Rejean has spoken, so-" He trailed off.

There was silence. Then: "What will Baptiste do to me?" she asked in a small voice.

Garrick shrugged. "Whatever he wants, I suppose. They call him 'L _e Fouet_ '. 'The Whip', it means in English. And not because of how clever he is. I think, after Baptiste is done with you, you will not be so beautiful as you are now. It's too bad."

She shuddered and leaned her head against him. "My family has money. Maybe not as much as your father. But they'd pay to get me home. I could be worth a lot."

"Etienne said that already. But Rejean said no – you must go to Baptiste. Perhaps Baptiste will decide to sell you; I don't know. But Edouard was his favourite brother. I think he will have different plans for you."

"But you were the one who brought me. Doesn't that count for anything? Why does Rejean get to decide? He works for your father. Doesn't that basically mean he works for you?"

Garrick made a face. "It would be nice if my father saw it that way, yes. But unfortunately for me, he doesn't."

"The way you talked, I thought you were more important than that. The way it sounds, no matter what Rejean or the others tell you to do, you have to do it."

Garrick bristled. But he didn't answer.

Later, during a break, Lily asked about the others.

"They're all related one way or another, " Garrick said. "Rejean and Etienne are half-brothers. Remy and Tomas are cousins, and they're both some kind of distant cousin to Rejean. So was Edouard. So am I, for that matter. You can't spit in the Gaspé without hitting a relative. They all keep careful track, too. Half the stories start with that time somebody's great-half-uncle-twice-removed stole somebody's cow. And then they usually end with someone getting knifed. They're big on knives there."

Lily spent an uncomfortable night handcuffed to a tree a little distance from the rest. At Rejean's order, Garrick had spread Edouard's bedroll out for her next to the tree and with some effort she was able to lie down with her back to it and pull the blanket up around her. There was even a pillow. But she slept fitfully. The night was cold and the thin pad of the sleeping roll did little to keep out the ground's chill.

When she awoke, the fire was out. The moon had set and the night was dark. But the sky was clear and she could see stars through the branches above her. The sound of light snoring reached her from where the Gaspésie slept curled up near the remains of the fire.

Lily was cold under her thin blanket. But that wasn't what woke her. It was the hand over her mouth, stifling her sudden shriek.

"Shhh!" said Garrick. He was at her head, kneeling above her. "They're asleep. Let's make sure they stay that way." He pushed her over on her back then reached down to pull her sweater up to her shoulders, baring her breasts. She felt her nipples harden as the cold air hit them.

"What are you doing?" she whispered. She could hear him fumbling with the fastening of his pants.

"We need to see if you're worthy of the Bayard name." He pushed the pillow down so it was under her neck, then yanked up on her collar, forcing her head to tilt backwards toward him.

"Garrick, no!" she said in sudden panic. "Not here."

"You keep saying that." He stroked her face, then forced his thumb between her lips. "Which do you prefer? Gaspé or Maine?"

She turned her head aside. "Please, don't," she whispered.

"Gaspé or Maine?"

"You know the answer to that."

"Then open your mouth. And keep quiet."

When he was done, he pulled her sweater back down and slapped her lightly on the cheek. "You have talent," he whispered in her ear. "I can't wait to try out the rest of you." She said nothing. Her breasts and nipples were sore from where he'd squeezed and pinched them, and her throat was raw and aching. She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them again quickly. But there was still nothing there but the sky and the cold, hard, stars staring down at her. She swallowed uncomfortably and rolled over on her side, closing her eyes so she didn't have to see them watching her.

Later, she awoke shivering in the pre-dawn chill. She was half off her bedroll and her face was resting on the cold ground. And on something else. Something small, hard and oddly regular that pressed into her cheek. She twisted her head and felt it move. It was still too dark to see, but she could trace its outline with her tongue: a loop of metal with a tail sticking out of one side. A key? She mouthed at it with her lips. It was a key, the one to her handcuffs. It must have fallen out of his pocket when – she pushed the thought away.

She couldn't reach it with her hands; it was too far away from where they were shackled around the tree. Even if she could have, it was too dark for her to travel and she had no food or water or any supplies. But it was small enough to fit nicely near the back of her mouth, between the cheek and gums.

Rejean had key, she knew. But now she had one, too.

-OOO-

"I woke up hard from dreaming about you," Garrick said the next morning as he led her off into the trees.

She stared at him in silence, then looked away. He tugged on her chain. "What's your problem?"

"You have to ask?"

"You mean last night?"

"Of course I mean last night. I didn't want to do it with you like that."

He shrugged dismissively. "I was in a hurry. It seemed the easiest way. Remy said Baptiste likes to see if he can take out just one eye without hitting the other. Sometimes he succeeds. Maybe you'd rather take your chances with him."

There had been a certain amount of excitement that morning when Garrick realized his handcuff key was missing. Now Rejean had his handcuffs back and her hands were tied with rope. But at least they were tied in front of her. She slid her pants down to her knees in one quick motion as she squatted, bending forward to shield herself from his gaze.

"Your sweater," he said, motioning.

Obediently, she raised her sweater for him and held it there, baring her breasts. She could see the bulge of his erection through his pants. Her heart sank and she hurried to finish, hoping one of the others would come to find out what was taking them. But he just stood waiting, watching her, and rubbing himself absently through his jeans. When she finished, she stood to pull her pants up. But he pushed her hands away with one hand, and with the other, cupped her between the legs, penetrating her roughly with his middle finger. She gasped in surprise and he yanked on her chain, pulling her close to him.

"Does that feel nice?" He moved his finger inside her. "Does it?" She stared at him, then nodded. "Say it," he whispered. "I want to hear you say it. Tell me how nice it feels."

"It feels nice," she said, finally.

"You can do better than that," he told her. He inserted another finger, sliding them both all the way into her. "Beg for it. Beg me to fill you up. I want to hear you beg."

Just then Tomas shouted for Garrick. He pulled his fingers out of her and held them to her mouth, smearing them across her lips. "Before we're done, I'll hear you beg," he told her. "One way or another."

The day was a repeat of the first. Having put some needed distance between themselves and Carlisle Station, they were scouting more as they went and so there was much climbing of hills and lookout points, with stops to add details to the map Rejean kept folded in a waterproof case in his saddlebag. It was a beautiful thing, hand-copied from an ancient, pre-War survey map and now heavily annotated. Getting it copied in the first place had cost him considerably. But now, with trails and invasion routes inked in, and with his accompanying notes on terrain and resources, it was worth a small fortune, and he guarded it jealously.

At mid-morning they stopped to rest the horses near where trees grew through a tangle of ancient, rusted vehicles jammed together in the aftermath of some long-ago pile-up, Tomas and Etienne stopped close by her to smoke, filling their pipes with tobacco from leather bags they wore around their necks and lighting them with an ember from the fire pot Tomas carried.

"I don't like it, Etienne," Tomas growled, speaking French. He was short but wide and dark, with thick, calloused hands, and arms and shoulders like a blacksmith. He blew smoke. "I don't trust the damned Purlaine anywhere, and I especially don't trust them out here."

"Piss on the Purlaine," Etienne said agreeably, taking a pull on his pipe and letting the smoke dribble out of his mouth on either side so that he looked like a hairy dragon. "I told Rejean we should circle around and let them find their own way, but he said no, he promised we'd meet them." He looked down at Lily and his expression grew somber. "I wish we did not have her with us. It's fine for Rejean to say 'Hands off! It is the law!' But when women are concerned, men forget the law, and the Purlaine have no law to start with."

"Maybe they will have found women of their own."

"Maybe they will." Etienne's expression brightened. "Maybe they will even have some extras to share," he said hopefully.

Tomas laughed. "You are incurable, Etienne. Maybe they will bring an airplane, too, and we can all fly home."

"Maybe they will."

They smoked a while longer. Etienne looked over to where Lily sat, staring off into the distance. "I think she's listening to us," he said.

"So what? She doesn't understand anything we say."

"Are you sure?"

"Forget her. She's just dreaming about the next time her little boyfriend will diddle her."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't know?" Tomas laughed. "Garrick. When he takes her off to do her business, he likes to play with her."

"I don't believe it. Rejean said not to."

"Believe it. Sometimes in the dark, too, when he thinks we are sleeping. He thinks no one sees. But Tomas sees."

"Does Rejean know?"

"No. Or maybe he does, but maybe he just close the eye. When you're a leader, you have to know when to see and when not to see. And what Baptiste doesn't know, I will not tell him. Neither will you. Nor Remy, either. He's my cousin, but he's a hothead and he wants to kill her anyway. And if he did, Rejean would have to kill him, and then my uncle would tell his brothers to help him kill Rejean, and my father would tell my uncle to go piss on himself and it would be a mess. So we'll keep it to ourselves."

Etienne shook his head ruefully. "I will never be a leader of men."

"Yes, you will. You are like your brother: you have a good head and a good heart. As long as you know when to use the one and when the other, men will follow wherever you lead."

"Do you think so?"

Tomas cuffed him good-naturedly. "No, I think you will try to make love to a cow and it will roll over and crush you, and then we will all laugh at your funeral."

"Probably." Etienne looked at Lily again. She looked back at him and their eyes held for a moment. Then she looked away.

"I will keep an eye on Garrick," he said finally. "Maybe Rejean thinks it's okay what he's doing, but that doesn't mean he should."

"You do that." Tomas shook the dottle out of his pipe and carefully concealed it. He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked into the distance. "Here come the others. Get the girl; it's time to pack up."

Lily looked at Etienne again. She had, of course, been listening. But she'd been thinking, too. That Nick and her father were taking too long. That Garrick was getting bolder. That she was running out of time.

-OOO-

"What's going on?" Lily asked Garrick as they rode. It was late afternoon, and they were skirting the remains of what had once been a good-sized town, mostly grown over by the forest now but still with a number of buildings intact. There had been an argument between Remy and Rejean, which the latter had won.

"Remy wanted to scout the town for salvage, but Rejean is afraid of ghouls and he said no. Remy is pissed, but what can he do?"

"Are there really ghouls there?" Her command of the odd patois the Gaspésie spoke was rapidly improving, and so she knew the answer already. "It reeks of ghouls," Rejean had said, "and we are only five, with a lame horse, a dead body, and a captive to slow us down. It's too dangerous." "Then send the girl in alone," Remy had suggested. "When they come for her, we can kill them." But Rejean vetoed the plan. "We have no time now anyway. Next time, we'll bring some Purlaine with us and let them and the ghouls kill each other. Then we can loot at our leisure. Okay?" "Okay."

Instead, Garrick said: "I doubt it. But Rejean is a coward. He wants to come back with an army of Purlaine, just in case. It is stupid. The others are already complaining. If he is not careful, they will decide they need a new leader, and someone will put a knife in his back. It is the way they do things in the Gaspé."

"What is a 'Purlaine'?" Lily asked, hearkening back in her mind to the conversation she'd heard earlier.

"Who," Garrick corrected. "They are the 'pure wool' – the true, French-Canadian stock from before the English came and brought all the Indians and blacks and Jews. Now Quebec is all mixed breeds. But there are some who kept their blood pure. That's the Purlaine."

"Really?" She sounded doubtful. "I don't see how that's even possible after all this time. There can't be too many of them."

He shrugged. "Not the purest bloods, no. But people like us – blonde hair and blue eyes – that's a good start. It shows your line isn't completely tainted. That's one reason why my father left. He did not want his son to marry a brown-skinned Gaspé girl. Too much Mi'kmaq Indian in the people of the Gaspé. "

They had finished circumnavigating the town by then, and Rejean signalled a halt while he and Etienne consulted the map. They had compasses out and were arguing loudly while the others gathered around.

"Shouldn't you be up there, too?" Lily said.

Garrick snorted. "Why? It's just more of the same. 'Let's go this way.' 'What about this road here?' 'No, wait, I want to see what's on the other side of this hill.' I couldn't care less. Rejean especially, strutting around giving orders like the King of Spain. That will change once the Purlaine get here. They don't put up with shit from stupid half breeds."

"What do the Purlaine want? I get they're planning an invasion. But I don't understand why."

Garrick laughed. "You won't ask that question after you've spend a winter or two in Quebec."

The party started up again. They had been working their way to the south and west, and now they turned onto what had once been a major highway leading straight west. The forest had long since invaded it, but the undergrowth was light and travel was much easier than before.

After a while, Garrick took up where he'd left off.

"It was the white race that made civilization in the first place," he said. "Everyone else was just savages until the whites came along and lifted them up. My Pops says they should have left well enough alone. The different races can't live together, and if you try mixing them, you just drag the superior ones down. People think it was the War that messed the world up. But it was going to happen anyway."

Lily frowned. "Garrick, I don't want to be rude to you. Maybe things are different in Quebec. But in Diamond City, half the people you meet aren't of the 'white race', and we seem to manage fine."

He chuckled indulgently. "It's nice that you're willing to stick up for them, Lily. But we have to live in the real world. And in the real world it's the whites who gave us civilization and it's the whites who'll bring it back again. Only this time without the slave races to drag us down."

Lily made a face, but she was behind Garrick and he couldn't see her.

"You'll see," he added. "We rendezvous with some Purlaine tomorrow, coming up from the south. Then you'll see the true Quebec, not these ragged-ass Gaspésie."

"How many will meet us?"

"How should I know? Why do you care?"

"Because a bigger group means it will harder for us to escape."

"Escape?" Garrick frowned at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Escape. That's our plan, isn't it? To escape Rejean and go to Maine?"

"Are you stupid?" He looked incredulous. "I told you. My father sent me to learn the ways of the Gaspé. If I come waltzing back home without permission, he'll beat me senseless. And probably disown me."

"So what was that all about back there? 'Maine or Gaspé'. Remember?"

Garrick spread his arms helplessly. "Look… I know what I said. But you don't know my father. He'd cut me off in a heartbeat."

"But wasn't the whole idea for you to learn to be a man? Don't you think stealing me out from under Rejean's nose qualifies?" She hugged him tightly so he could feel her breasts through her sweater. "Please, Garrick," she said evenly, "I don't want Baptiste to practise on me with his whip. I want to be with you."

He paused, thinking. Finally, he said: "It's true, what you say. It would be a gutsy move, and he'd love it. He gets nostalgic about the Gaspé sometimes, but deep down he hates it and everyone in it. It would tickle him to think of me pulling one over on them like that."

"So we'll do it? Tonight?"

"Not so fast. What about your uncle? The synth? Will he try to follow you and bring you back?"

"Nick?" she said bitterly. "Why would he? He's not really my uncle. He just makes us call him that. Besides, I'm nothing to him. Just the stupid girl who does his typing."

Garrick nodded his head. "It's risky. If they caught us…" He left the thought unfinished.

"But think of the reward." She let her hands drift down to his waist and her fingers brushed lightly against the bulge in his pants.

"Say we were to do this," he said at last. "It would have to be tonight, as you say. I could arrange to take first watch, and once they're asleep I'd come get you. Luckily, the moon is first quarter so there'll be enough light for us to get a good start on them. It'll set about midnight, but by then we'd be far away."

"Why not kill them in their sleep?"

"No. That's crazy. My father trades with their families. And… they're not complete assholes. I don't like them, but they are good men in their own way. Besides, it's not so easy to kill a man, even in his sleep. I wouldn't want to take a chance of not getting them all."

"Then give me a gun and we'll do it together."

Garrick laughed. "Hardly. I already made that mistake once. All we need to do is put some distance between us before they wake up and we'll be home free."

"Do you know where you're going?"

Garrick grimaced. "That's a problem. We didn't come this way on the way east. If we go north from here about two days we'll eventually cut a trader's road. But until then it will be easy to get lost. If we had Rejean's map, it shows most of the country around here."

"But we don't have Rejean's map."

"No." He thought for a moment. "I'll ask to see it. At supper. He loves to show that thing off. At the worst, I'll have a better idea of the lay of the land. If we're lucky, Rejean will leave it where it will be easy to steal. It's not like he keeps it shoved down his pants or something."

She took a quick look behind. Tomas had dropped farther back and was nowhere to be seen. She licked her lips then raised herself up a little so she could kiss Garrick, long and wetly, just where his jawline and neck met.

"I'll be a good wife to you," she said, running her lips down the length of his neck before burying her face against his shoulder.

"Not so fast," he said. "You understand that it will be no different than if you went to the Gasp _é_. It isn't Diamond City there and I'm not your little black friend – Garcia or whatever his name is. You will be my property, just like my dogs or my horses, and if you cross me or fail to please me" –he turned his head to look into her eyes–"I also have a whip."

"I understand," she said softly, resting her chin on his shoulder. "I'll be good. You'll see. And if I'm not"—she bit his earlobe gently and whispered in his ear—"you have a whip."

-OOO-


	9. Chapter 9

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following work is intended for adult audiences and contains canon-typical violence, horror, coarse language and scenes of a violent and sexual nature which some readers may find disturbing.]

-OOO-

That night they camped in a small clearing tucked into a hollow in a hillside just above the road. Supper over, Tomas sat staring moodily into the fire.

Rejean nudged him. "Something troubles you," he said.

"It is Edouard," Tomas answered, motioning to the wrapped bundle on the far edge of the clearing. "We should bury him. He begins to smell." He looked meaningfully across the fire at Remy.

Remy shrugged. "You smell all the time," he answered. "No one is suggesting we bury you."

"It's fine for you," Tomas said with a touch of annoyance. "But I am right behind him, and I say he is beginning to rot. I get a nose full of corpse every time I take a breath."

"Piss on you, Tomas," Remy said, heatedly. "I promised him a priest to say the words."

"So?"

"So, do you see a priest here? No? Then he stays."

"Piss on you, Remy. He stinks. It's time we got rid of him." He turned to Rejean: "Make him see sense, Rejean."

"No, Rejean." Remy said. "It's what he wanted."

"He's dead," Tomas interrupted. "It doesn't matter what he wanted."

Remy snarled and clapped a hand to his knife hilt. Rejean put a restraining hand on his arm. "Enough," he said. "Tomas is right. The smell will bring ghouls or worse down on us. I think we must leave him behind."

"Rejean, I promised."

"I know."

Tears started in Remy's eyes. "Please, Rejean. Animals will tear him apart. They will eat his face and scatter his bones, and his spirit will wander and be lost."

"We will dig a proper grave for him," Rejean said softly. "He'll be safe from the wild things then, and we will mark the spot on my map so that when the earth has taken his soft parts, we can return and bring him back with us. And you, take a lock from his beard and bury it in the cemetery next to his father so his spirit will find its way home. Okay?"

Remy closed his eyes "Must it be so?"

"It must. He would not have wanted to put you in danger, Remy."

Remy smiled and tears made twin tracks down his face. "You are right, Rejean. You are always right."

The site Remy picked was farther back among the trees, in a clear space at the foot of a tall elm. The digging was slow. The ground was soft but full of roots, and there had been houses here before the war, and the diggers' shovels were constantly unearthing bits and pieces of civilization: broken concrete and rebar, pieces of plastic siding and once a roll of electrical wire. By nightfall the grave was still shallow and Rejean called a halt.

"We will finish it in the morning," he said, getting up from where he'd been showing his map to Garrick. "Time to turn in now. We will let Remy sleep tonight. Garrick, you will take the first watch, then Tomas, Etienne and then myself." Re-folding the map, he put it carefully back in its case and stowed it in his pack by his bedroll.

Lily sat slumped tiredly against a tree at the edge of the clearing, her arms tied behind it. Angry at Garrick for losing the other handcuff key, Rejean had taken them back, and now she was tied with rope instead.

Rejean waved towards her. "Take her to do her business, back in the trees. But see you don't get lost in the dark. And don't waste time. You are on watch as of now."

Garrick grinned. "Yes, my master," he said. He untied Lily and took her by her collar chain. "Come on," he grunted, leading her into the inky blackness under the trees.

"What are we doing?" she whispered, reaching to take his hand.

He laughed and pushed her against a tree. "You're going to spread your legs and hold on," he said. "That's what you're doing." He pulled her pants down to her ankles, forcing her to step out of them.

"Garrick, stop," she said. "They could come looking for us. There'll be lots of time for this."

"How did I know you'd say that?" He spread her legs wide. "I'm in charge here, remember? I decide what happens."

"No, wait," she whispered urgently, "Garrick wait. I'm not ready yet."

"You're never ready, little tease. You talk the talk. Now you get to walk the walk. Whether you want to or not. Now keep quiet. If they catch us, it will go hard for you."

"Me? What about you?"

He laughed. "I'm a Bayard. You're a little nobody from the Commonwealth. What do you think? Now spread your legs."

"Wait, please," she said, a growing panic in her voice. "Just… just use your fingers on me a little first, to get me going. I'll show you how. I promise it will be better that way, and you won't hurt me. Please, Garrick." She could hear him fumbling with his pants and then his member was out and she could feel it twitching between her thighs as it rose to full erection.

He ignored her. "Where do you want it?" he said, using his hand to rub the head against her outer lips. "Here? But we might make a baby that way. Maybe you'd like it here, instead." He reached between her legs to probe her anal sphincter with one finger.

She gasped. "No. Not like that. If you do that, I'll scream. I swear I will. I don't care what happens."

"Will you? Maybe I like it when you scream." He covered her mouth with his other hand, locking her head in a vise-like grip. But the finger went away and instead she heard him spitting on his other hand. Then the head of his shaft was at her lips again, thick and hard, and sticky with saliva. She shook her head in mute protest, her eyes wide, as with one thrust he buried himself inside her.

She screamed, the sound muffled by his hand, then screamed again as he pulled out and thrust into her again. He reached down to pull her legs up around his hips, forcing himself between her thighs and pushing her hard against the tree with his body. He drove into her again and again, the rough bark of the tree scraping her back and buttocks raw. She struggled to keep silent, terrified the men in the camp would come to investigate and praying for it to end. A red fire of agony blossomed inside her, growing with every pounding stroke. Suddenly his hands encircled her throat. She gasped once and then her breath was cut off. She struggled furiously against him, tearing at his hands, but his fingers were like iron bands around her neck, holding her helpless against the tree while he pistoned in and out of her. Her lungs burned and her vision began to darken, and she realized helplessly that she was going to die.

He thrust into her one last time and groaned as he came, releasing his grip on her neck as his ejaculate spurted out of him in wave after shuddering wave. She collapsed against the tree as he slipped out of her, her breath coming in hoarse, pain-filled gasps.

"Garrick, what is taking you? "she heard Rejean call from the camp.

"She's just pooping," Garrick called back. "I have to wipe her clean." Which was true. Her bowels had emptied and now feces were smeared across her thighs and buttocks and dripped down her leg. "I can't believe you shit on me," he added to her, whispering angrily in her ear. He pulled a handful of leaves off a branch and shoved them into her hand. "Wipe yourself. Then find your pants. Tonight's the night we get out of here."

Numbly, she did as she was told, cleaning herself off as well as she could in the dark while he did the same. The burning pain had abated only a little. She was bruised and swollen and she could feel blood trickling down between her legs.

"Here's your jeans," he said, kicking them at her. "Hurry." She stepped into them and bent over to pull them up, biting back a cry of pain. He yanked on her chain and she stumbled forward, crying out again.

"Garrick… I don't think I can," she said, leaning against the tree for support.

"Can what?"

"Walk. I don't think I can walk."

"Well you're going to have to. If you want to come to Maine, this is your only chance. If those Purlaine see you, they're likely to want a little piece, too, and it won't matter what Rejean says. So you're just going to have to pull up your big girl panties and walk."

He pulled on her chain, harder this time, and she gritted her teeth and followed. Back at the camp, he helped her lie down on her bedroll and tied her wrists together again behind the tree. She tucked her knees up and he put a blanket over her.

"I know it hurts," he whispered, bending over. "Look, when we get to Maine I'll get Pops to find a priest for us, and we'll do it up right. Okay? I promise."

She nodded, her eyes closed. "Okay."

Rejean came up. "You took your time," he said. "What is wrong with her?"

Garrick shrugged. "Something with her stomach, I think. Maybe she got some bad water? I don't know."

"Huh." Rejean squatted down beside her. "Where does it hurt?" he said in English. Then he wrinkled his nose. "What is that smell?"

"She crapped herself. I tried to clean her up, but it was all over. I told you, it's her stomach. They're weak, here in the south. Get a little bug and the guts start spraying everywhere."

Rejean looked doubtful. "Perhaps." He put his hand on her forehead. "She's cold. There's another blanket in my pack; go get it and cover her up better than this. It won't do to have her die on us."

Gradually, the men settled down while Garrick kept watch. The sky was clear. Light from the half-moon poured down on the land below. It had cooled off quickly after sunset and Garrick paced to stay warm while he waited. Finally, he was sure he had identified the individual snores of all four men. It was time.

But Garrick had a dilemma. Escaping was now far more difficult than it would have been had he left Lily alone. It had been stupid, he admitted to himself. Her injuries might only be superficial, but they were undeniably painful and no matter how much he pushed her, it was going to slow them down.

He considered calling it off. But it really was tonight or nothing, and the vision of walking into his father's house with a prize like Lily in tow – a girl of the mighty Commonwealth, not just stolen from the Gaspésie but forced into submission like a wild horse broken to harness – was, to put it simply, irresistible. The more he pictured his triumphant return, the more he liked it.

The hell with it, he decided. She might not want to, but she could still walk. If she balked, well, pain was an effective motivator when administered generously enough.

He went over to untie her, then changed his mind. If he left her unbound while he went back for Rejean's map, she might simply sneak off into the bush. He didn't imagine she would, but she wasn't predictable, and it would wreck everything. That meant the map case first, then the girl, then vanish into the bush and they were home free.

He slunk across the clearing where the others slept curled up together close to the banked-up remnants of the cooking fire. For an instant he considered sliding a box of shells into the coals. It would take a few minutes for them to ignite, but when they did it would be like half the raiders this side of the Connecticut River had descended on them. Still, it wouldn't take long for them to figure out what was going on and then they'd be on the hunt. Better to leave them sleep. That way, he and Lily would have hours of head start. And the map.

Rejean was sleeping with his head pillowed on his arm next to Etienne, who had pulled his blanket up over his head. Rejean's pack, with the precious map in an outside pocket, was just in arm's reach of him. His belt and holster were draped across it. As luck would have it, the pocket containing the map case was on top. Garrick stood frozen for a moment, watching the others for any sign of wakefulness. There was nothing. Slipping across to where the pack lay, he undid the lacings and drew the map case out.

He did a little dance in his mind, then ghosted back across the clearing to Lily. Suddenly, from the darkness in front of him he heard the unmistakable click of a hammer being drawn back.

"Stop there, Garrick," said Etienne. "Raise your hands and do not move or I will put a very large hole in your forehead.

"So, you were right, Etienne," said Rejean from behind him. He reached over Garrick's shoulder and plucked the map from his fingers. "Making off with the girl I don't care about. We would have paid Baptiste with Edouard's share of the money. But stealing my map and all my notes…. That is not a good thing, Garrick."

The others had come up by now. Someone took Garrick's pistol and knife from his belt while other hands searched him roughly, relieving him of the extra knife in his boot and the small hideout gun he kept inside his coat.

"Have a care, Rejean," he snarled, his hands still raised. "My father owns you and all your kin. If you hurt me, he'll cut you off, then all of Rimouski will starve next winter."

"Your threats grow tiresome. What would your father have done with the information on this map once you gave it to him? How much would it have been worth to the Commonwealth to know where our armies will march? He is a big man, your father. But when the Purlaine find out he has betrayed them, all the wealth in New England won't stay their hands."

"My father had nothing to do with that. I simply needed the map to find the way home."

"You know that and I know that. But the Purlaine don't know that."

"You would not."

"Wouldn't I?" Rejean gestured at the map case. "I have worked my whole life for this. A whole life of sleeping on the ground and eating food a pig wouldn't touch; of freighting timber and fur for fat, greedy merchants who only care how many pennies they can squeeze out of each load; of watching my children starve for lack of money to buy food, and die for lack of money to pay the doctor. This map and the things that go with it – they are worth more than I would see in a lifetime of working for villains like your father, men who would take everything I have away from me. And these others – Etienne, Remy, Tomas – we pooled everything we had for this. And you would take it from us so you can fuck some Commonwealth slut?"

Garrick protested: "It's not like that. Rejean – "

"Silence. I have already decided. You have betrayed me, Garrick. You have broken your word, you have broken the Law, and you have betrayed your comrades. And for those things you will die."

He nodded at Tomas who aimed a staggering blow at Garrick's head. Forewarned, Garrick ducked and the blow went whistling over his head, but Remy stepped forward and drove his fists into Garrick's midsection. Garrick staggered, turned to run, and was felled by a blow from behind. Then they were on him, kicking and punching as he rolled on the ground trying to ward them off. Screaming like a madman he fought to his feet and fetched Remy a blow that sent him staggering. For an instant, he was free, then Etienne tripped him up from behind and Tomas' foot caught him in the face as he fell, breaking his teeth, and he was down again.

After a while, Rejean signalled a halt. "That's enough," he said coldly. He took his handcuffs from his coat pocket and threw them to Etienne. "It's late. Tie him to the tree by his whore. We'll deal with them tomorrow."

-OOO-

Garrick moaned and shivered in the cold. He was slumped over, his hands cuffed behind him around the tree. His eyes were swollen nearly shut and his face was a bloodied mess. Blood leaked from his nose and dripped down his chin, and one ear was nearly torn off.

It was an hour shy of midnight, and the moon was westering. Remy was standing watch, but he was pacing to keep warm and looking the other way. He had come over once to spit on Garrick. Other than that, he ignored them.

"Garrick," Lily said urgently from where she was tied a few feet away from him. She was sitting up with her back to the tree. There was a stub of metal sticking out of the ground. She could feel it with her fingers. A piece of rebar, she thought. She'd spent the last hour rubbing the rope against it. She thought it was starting to fray, a little. Or maybe not; it was impossible to tell. Finally she'd made a decision.

"Garrick," she whispered again. "Wake up."

"Fuck you, Lily," Garrick said weakly through shattered teeth. "They are going to kill me and it's all your fault. I should never have listened to you. Leave me to die in peace."

"Stop talking for once," she hissed. "This is important. Can you move? Can you walk? Can you run?"

He laughed, then gasped in pain from broken ribs. "Can I walk? Can I run? Can I fly? Can I turn into air and waft away on the breeze? I can do none of those things chained to this tree."

"What if you weren't chained to the tree?"

"What does that matter? I am, and in the morning they will probably hang me from it, and you beside me. Leave me alone. I want to pray."

"Garrick, you asshole, look at me," Lily whispered. He ignored her. She stretched out a foot, wincing in pain, and kicked at his leg. "Look at me," she repeated.

He finally did. She was sticking out her tongue and there, resting on it, was the key to the handcuffs.

His jaw dropped. "Where did you get that?"

She made the key disappear again. "It fell out of your pants last night," she said. "I guess you were too busy to notice."

"Give it to me."

"Why? So you can push me against a tree and rape me some more?"

"What are you talking about? Forget that, would you? Look, I was too rough. I'm sorry. Do you want to escape the noose or not?"

"And then what?"

"Anywhere. Maine, if you want, like we planned."

"Yes, because I really, really want to be your slave. Thanks, but I've seen how that works out."

"I'm sorry, Lily. I was an ass. It won't be like that, I promise. Please forgive me. I got carried away. That isn't the kind of person I am, really." He stared at her. "Lily… my father is rich. You wouldn't believe how rich. Even just a part of what he owes me would be enough to set us up. Even in Diamond City if you wanted. But give me the key."

She stared at him indecision. He licked his lips. "Lily, it's the only way. Otherwise, we're dead."

"I know that." Lily thought for a moment. "Okay, hang on." She looked where Remy was leaning against a tree and fighting the sentry's eternal battle against cold, boredom and sleepiness. He was looking the other way so she clambered to her knees then wriggled around so she was facing Garrick. Leaning forward as far as she could, she carefully spat the key so that it hit the tree he was tied to and fell with a soft clink to the ground beside him.

"Bravo!" he crowed in a whisper. He wriggled around until he could pick it up. It took some manoeuvring for him to get it into the keyhole and turn it, but he did and with a click, the handcuffs sprang open and fell to the ground.

"Now untie me!" Lily whispered.

Garrick hesitated. He looked over at her, then looked back at Remy.

"Untie me," Lily whispered again. "Garrick what the hell are you doing?"

He shook his head. "The next time he looks over here, he'll see we're gone and then the chase will be up. It's bad enough just me alone. You can barely walk; they'd run us down in an hour."

"You bastard. It's your fault I can't walk. You can't just leave me here."

He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I really didn't mean for it to turn out this way. But you'd just slow me down. Once I get home, I'll arrange to buy you back from Baptiste, I promise."

"Garrick don't do this," Lily said. "I'm warning you."

He didn't appear to have heard her. "He's walking away. Now's my chance." He climbed to his feet. "'Bye Lil – it was fun."

He turned to run and as he did, Lily's howl – a cry of rage and pain, of shame and betrayal – split the air. Garrick froze, then cursed. In the camp, men rolled out of their blankets and snatched up weapons. Remy looked wildly around then came running towards them, arm cocked and knife in hand. Garrick bolted but Lily flung out her leg and he tripped, falling heavily to the ground. He rolled to his feet, swearing and pulling himself up by a branch just as Remy let fly. The knife described a long, flat arc, turning once end-over-end, and pierced Garrick's hand, pinning it to the branch.

He screamed, then screamed again as he tugged at the knife with his other hand. Remy reached him and swung at him two-handed, driving him to his knees. Garrick shrieked as the knife tore through the wound. Then the others were there and though Garrick fought like a madman, the outcome was never in doubt.

Rejean had the roll of electrical wire they'd dug up earlier and he used this to tie Garrick's wrists and feet, pulling it cruelly tight. "Take him over there," he said when it was done, pointing with his chin at the half-dug grave. "It's time to end this."

"What about her?" Remy said, looking at Lily.

"We'll worry about her later."

In all the commotion, no one had seen Lily slide the opened handcuffs toward her with her foot, or noticed that she leaned over to mouth the key and once again tuck it into the space between her cheek and gum.

-OOO-

Garrick lay by the side of the grave as Tomas and Remy worked by lamplight to deepen it. "Deep enough for two," Rejean had said, but there was a slab of buried concrete at about waist-depth.

"That's as deep as it gets," Tomas growled.

"It will have to do." The diggers scrambled out. Rejean looked down at Garrick where he lay. He was wide-eyed, his mouth twitching, and a sheen of sweat filmed his face. Otherwise, he was silent.

"Do you have anything to say?" Rejean asked.

"Fuck you, " Garrick said. "Stupid Gaspésie can't even dig a grave right." He spat at Rejean.

Rejean motioned to the others. "Throw him in," he said.

"What?" Garrick twisted his head to look at Rejean and his eyes widened in horror. "No. No… not like this. Rejean, _no_!"

Tomas and Remy each took an end. Garrick doubled up his legs and kicked out, driving Tomas backwards. He rolled away, thrashing furiously as the men struggled to lay hold of him. Finally they hoisted him into the air. He was screaming now, and his bladder let loose, soaking through his pants.

"Look at him" Remy laughed, pointing with his chin. "Garrick Bayard just pissed himself like a child. That's all anyone will remember about you, that you pissed yourself before you died. We'll make sure to tell your father."

"Noooo….!" Garrick howled as they heaved him unceremoniously into the grave.

"Now him," Rejean said impassively, nodding at Edouard's body.

"Rejean –" Etienne began, but his brother silenced him with a look then nodded again at Tomas and Remy, who bent to pick up the shrouded corpse.

"Rejean, you can't do this," Garrick begged. "Stop them. Don't let them put him in on top of me. I'm sorry. I'll be good. I promise I'll be good. Don't let them… please don't let them – " He broke off with a strangled squawk as they slid the corpse into the hole on top of him then reached for their shovels.

"Wait!" he screamed. "Tell them to put down the shovels. Tell them, Rejean!"

They began filling in the grave, the first shovelfuls of dirt landing on the bodies below.

Garrick screamed in earnest now. "Please, Rejean! _Please!_ " he begged, panic-stricken, as the dirt struck him. "Please, no more."

Paralyzed with fear, Lily had listened as Rejean pronounced Garrick's sentence. Now, as they slowly buried him alive, her fear turned to horror and she began struggling against her bonds, rubbing them frantically against the broken rebar end and succeeding only in pulling them tighter. From the trees she could still hear Garrick's frenzied screams and the soft thud of dirt being shovelled into the hole. Then the first shovelful of dirt struck his face.

"No!" he shrieked, gagging and spitting out dirt. Another shovelful struck him and then: "No! Don't do this! Please. _Please!_ Pops! Papa! Mama! _Maman!_ "

She could hear him heaving and flailing in the grave as the men filled it in. It seemed to go on for a long time.

-OOO-


	10. Chapter 10

Against all expectation, Lily slept.

When she awoke, she wasn't sure where she was. She'd been dreaming: her mother, calling to her from the kitchen, the smell of breakfast, and the sun pouring through the open window. She blinked sleepily and yawned, squinting against the bright sunlight. But it wasn't her mother, it was Etienne standing above her, kicking her foot. He had a knife in his hand.

"Wake up," he said in English. "Wake up. It's time."

"What? I don't understand –" and then she remembered: Garrick's pitiful screams as they shovelled the dirt in around him, the sound of his body thrashing in the grave, and the terrible, hacking cough as he tried to clear the dirt from his mouth and nose. And the silence. Mostly she remembered the silence. Her breath caught and a cold hand gripped her heart. Now it was her turn.

"So soon?" she said.

She looked up at Etienne. It was almost mid-morning, and the sun was high enough that it peeked out from behind his shoulder, outlining him in a shimmering halo. _Like an angel,_ she thought. How strange that death should come for her clothed in gold. Maybe it was what she deserved. She heard Garrick choking and dying and knew it was her fault. She looked at the knife. At least it would be quick. She wondered if it would hurt. Would they bury her after, or leave her for the wild animals to tear at. And then what? What had Remy said? Would her spirit wander and be lost? Or would it simply die with her?

Etienne bent over her and she held her breath, screwing her eyes tightly shut. She wondered if Nick and her father would find what was left of her. Would her mother cry when they brought her the news, or would she curse her name?

He sliced through the ropes binding her wrists and then yanked on the chain on her collar. "Get up," he said. "I won't carry you."

Relief flooded through her. And then she heard Garrick's voice, pleading as they put him still living into his grave. A cold dread filled her and her legs felt rubbery. But she forced herself to stand up straight and for her voice to be even.

"I can walk there on my own," she said. She looked deliberately around. The others were busy packing up the camp: Rejean hunched over his precious map while Remy loaded up the horses and Tomas policed the camp, brushing away their tracks and hiding the traces of their passage as he always did. It all looked terrifying normal, and she realized that for them, her life and death were matters of no importance. A small thing to be gotten over with before they moved on.

"I don't see it," she finally said, putting as much dignity into the words as she could muster. Inside, she could feel the screams start, and she forced them back down, knowing that if she let them out they would never stop.

"See what?" Etienne frowned at her.

"A hole for me. Is it in the trees, next to Garrick? Will I die"—and her voice caught even though she willed it not to—"will I die with dirt filling my mouth, like he did? Or will you just kill me and leave me for the animals?"

"Why would I do either of those things?" Etienne said, a little awkwardly. "Rejean told me to take you to piss and then get you on a horse." He pulled on her chain again. "Hurry up. The others will want to leave soon."

She followed him, dazed, as he led her back among the trees a little distance from where the fresh grave was. She could see it through the branches: a low mound of earth at the foot of a tree. She shivered. Her hands were still unbound and she squatted down with her back to a tree, lowering her jeans. He looked away, then looked back as she lifted her sweater.

"Hey – hey! What are you doing? Stop that."

"What?" She stopped with it pulled halfway up, the lower part of her breasts exposed.

"What are you doing?" He pushed her arms back down. "Are you some kind of whore? Or do girls in the Commonwealth piss with their tits?"

She stared at him in confusion. "But"—she stopped. "But Garrick …" she trailed off.

"Garrick demanded you show yourself to him when you pissed?" He raised his eyebrows, then lowered them as he caught sight of the bruises on her thighs and the dried blood between her legs. "What has happened to you?" he said, and there was anger in his voice. "Let me see."

"No." She tried to cover herself with her hands. "It's nothing. Please, I really just need to pee."

Etienne turned his back to her and crossed his arms. "Garrick did that," he said flatly. "You should have told me."

"Why would I?" Lily finished and stood up, pulling up her pants and wincing at the pain. "You and your brother couldn't decide whether to kill me or give me to Edouard's brother, the one who likes to play with whips. Garrick said he'd marry me. So he liked to watch me pee. So what? It's better than being whipped to death by 'Le Fouet'."

Etienne turned around, a puzzled look on his face. " _Le Fouet_?" he said. "Who is that?"

"Baptiste. Edouard's brother. You know, the one you're giving me to? The one they call 'The Whip'?"

"Who calls him that? I have never heard him called that before. Baptiste will beat you if you displease him, certainly, but only when he is sober, which is rare nowadays, since he slipped clearing a logjam on the river five summers ago. Now he does not walk and the pain makes him angry, which he takes out on those around him. His wife, Amélie, she is my cousin Hebert's youngest sister; she will be glad of someone to share her bruises. You will like her. She is a beautiful dancer and very shy."

"So you're not going to kill me?"

Etienne looked at her in shocked amazement. "Whatever for?"

"Because I shot Edouard. Because I tried to escape with Garrick."

"So what if you did? Those are Garrick's sins, and he is dead."

Now it was Lily's turn to shake her head in confusion. "I don't understand."

Etienne pulled on her chain. "Listen, girl – what is your name?"

"Lily."

"Lily." His mouth worked as if he was tasting the name. Then he said "Lily, if a man turns his back on a wild horse and it aims a kick at him, does he shoot the horse? Of course not. He learns not to turn his back on it until the horse has learned not to kick. That is common sense. To shoot the horse for something it cannot control, that is just foolishness."

Lily opened her mouth, then closed it again. She wasn't sure whether to be furious or relieved. Just then a bird flitted by, a chickadee with its grey back and black cap and mask. It had a bit of fluff in its mouth and it landed on a branch above them and cocked its head, looking first at her, then at Etienne, then back to her. It hopped along the branch, turning its head every now and then to look suspiciously at them. She followed it with her eyes. Looking over, she saw that Etienne was watching it too.

" _Une mésange_ ," he whispered, not wanting to startle it. "We have them at home. I don't know the English."

"Chickadee," Lily said.

"Chickadee. She is lining her nest for the babies that will come." The chickadee turned to look at them one last time, then dropped from the branch and flew off. Etienne waved at it, a sad smile on his face. "Fly home now, little bird," he said under his breath. "Fly home."

He blushed when he realized Lily was looking at him. "They are my favourites, the little ones," he said. He tugged on her chain. "Come on. We have to get moving. The Purlaine are ahead somewhere, and woe to us that we might keep the mighty Purlaine waiting. Also, I have some things I must say to my brother."

He led her to where Rejean was just putting away his map. "Rejean," he said angrily. "Did you know what he did to her?" He pointed at Lily.

Rejean looked startled. Etienne poked him in the chest, pushing him backwards. "Answer me, my brother. Garrick. Did you know what he was up to with the girl?"

"Etienne, we have no time for this," Rejean answered. "We must get on our way. The Purlaine are waiting for us."

"Fuck the Purlaine. Have you seen what he did to her, that pig?"

Rejean spread his hands. "If you mean, did I know he was playing games with her when he thought no one was looking, then of course I did. When you are a leader, you know what your men are thinking before they think it."

"Really? Then what am I thinking now?"

"You are thinking 'Why did I let him get away with it, when I had given orders that she was not to be touched?'"

"That is right. And so?"

"And so…what? She is a girl of the Commonwealth. They spread their legs for the price of a glass of wine. She probably liked it. And if she didn't, so what? Garrick is the son of Francois Bayard. Until I sell this map"—he slapped the pocket of his saddlebag—"he owns me. And even if he didn't, Garrick was his heir, son of a great trading house. How many of us work Bayard trap lines or cut timber for their mills? We need the Bayards, piss on them. So if Garrick got his jollies watching her shit, who was hurt?"

"And Baptiste? What will he think?"

"What Baptiste does not know will not hurt him. You know this, Etienne. Why are you behaving like a child?"

"Because she did not belong to Garrick, and so he had no right even look at her, let alone do the things he did! And now because of that, he is dead. At your command. How do you think his father will feel about that?"

"I think his father will not know," Rejean said reasonably. "Unless one of you tells him, which I do not think you will. There are many ways a man can die in the wilderness and leave no corpse. Ghouls, deathclaws, wild bears… who can say? He will be angry, of course, because I promised to protect the boy. But that is on me."

Etienne's face darkened. "Always, you do this. You twist the words so that it all sounds so fine and true. But this time you are wrong. You broke the Law, Rejean, even as you yourself made it."

"That is true." The older man spread his hands helplessly. "Etienne, _mon cher_ , I did it because the Law is not the final word. You are young, little brother, and you do not yet understand. But sometimes one must choose not to see, or else a little thing will become a big thing. "

"And so you shut your eyes, and a little thing became a big thing," Etienne snapped angrily.

"Yes." Rejean's face grew somber. "The little thing became the big thing, as you say. I never expected that he would outright betray us, and when he did my hands were tied. I let you down, Etienne. I let all of you down. And him, too. Garrick should not have died last night. It was my fault."

Remy broke in. "Fuck Garrick," he spat. "Even shit smelled worse after he touched it. If anyone is to blame for Garrick, it is his useless pig of a father. "

"No, Remy, you are wrong. It was my job to teach him. That is why his father sent him to me. And I failed." He shook his head. "What is done is done. Now mount up. We must go. The Purlaine are waiting and we are late. Tomas—" he called over to where Tomas was making one last sweep of the camp "—come now. It is time."

"A minute, Rejean, I am almost done."

"No, come. There is no one following us. Let's go." The men mounted and with Remy leading, set out once again.

With their departure, silence returned once more to the little clearing. In the forest, a shaft of sunlight filtered down through the branches, catching a tuft of blue wool clinging to a scrap of bark at the base of a tree. The chickadee, its mouth full of nesting materials, stopped to consider it. But the breeze picked up just then, causing the tuft to flutter. The bird, always wary of sudden movements, took flight.

It did not return.

-OOO-


	11. Chapter 11

Nick had been feeling around with his hand in the soft dirt of the fresh grave. Now he stopped, and his expression was unreadable.

"Jack," he said. "There's another body under here."

Their mouths tight with the thought of what they might find, the two men heaved the wrapped body aside and dug with redoubled effort to uncover the second corpse,buried beneath the shrouded body of the shaven-headed raider. But it wasn't Lily who lay there; it was Garrick. His wrists and ankles had been bound tightly with wire. In his struggles, it had cut deeply into his skin, and his face and body showed signs of a savage beating. His eyes were wide with terror and his open mouth was filled with the dirt he'd breathed in as it was shovelled in on top of him.

"Jesus," Nick said. "I guess we know the kind of people we're dealing with."

"I guess we do." Jack's mouth was dry, and a cold fear gripped him. He looked at Nick and saw his own horror mirrored in the other man's face. "How long?" he finally said.

Nick rolled Garrick over to get a better look. "A day," he said, "maybe a day and a half. We're catching up."

"Good," Jack said. But he turned away and his eyes were dark with worry.

Nick quartered the area, looking for clues. The raiders had built a small fire in the clearing and there were marks of four bedrolls close by. Two more had been spread at the very edge of the clearing and next to them he spied a tuft of blue thread snagged on the bark at the base of a tree.

"Look at this," he called to Jack, pointing. "And see here?" A chunk of broken concrete poked out of the ground on the other side of the tree. A thin edge of rebar jutted out from it and the otherwise-rusted metal was polished smooth near the end, as if from rubbing. There were strands of rope fibre caught in the concrete and more of the blue woollen thread.

"She was here," Jack breathed, touching the bark of the tree. "She was alive."

"And trying to free herself."

"That's my girl." But he didn't smile. "Now let's go get her."

-OOO-

The trail continued nearly straight west. Near the remains of a collapsed church, the trail was joined by another set of tracks: a group of six more riders, coming up from the south. The group picked up speed now, moving more confidently and the two hunters also pushed hard, stopping only when it was too dark to see. They were getting closer. But Jack was worried.

"Day after tomorrow if the weather holds," he guessed, turning an eye skyward. They were sheltering in a tumble-down service station back among the trees just off the highway. The sky was clear and the night had turned cold, so they had risked a small fire. There had been no rain for several days and the dry wood burned clean and smokelessly. But there were clouds on the horizon. "We could get snow out of this," he said. "That might not be so bad. Rain would be a problem. If you're right about them, they'll turn north sooner or later. If we miss where they turn off, we could lose them entirely."

"We'll find them," Nick said, reassuringly. But the thought of Lily spending another night in the hands of the raiders filled him with dread.

"And when what? What's your plan for when we meet them?"

"We'll have to think about that," Nick said. "Ten of them and two of us – I don't much like the odds."

"They're over-confident," Jack said. "At first they were at least trying to cover their trail. Now look at them – riding along like they own the place. No fear. I think they're used to being the big dogs on the block. People like that make mistakes."

"We're not covering our trail either."

"Yeah, but no one's following us."

"We hope. But I wish we had a troop of Minutemen behind us."

The ex-Gunner snorted contemptuously. "For what? So they could march in and get my daughter killed? Sorry, Nick," he added, "I know the General is a friend of yours. And they've come a long way since the mob that attacked us at Quincy. But they're still just a bunch of farmers with hunting rifles. Anyone with a halfway decent military will eat them for dinner."

"Really?" Nick said with a touch of sarcasm. "As I recall, those 'farmers with hunting rifles' beat your Gunners pretty handily at Quincy."

Jack laughed. "We were in more danger running the training course in basic. All we had to do was give you Quincy and retreat back into the swamps. Once you followed us in we'd have taken you apart."

"Then why didn't you?"

Jack stared into the fire without answering. Finally he said, "Quincy was our home. We took a vote on it. And the vote was that we were done hiding in swamps." He sighed. "Stupid, really. The place was a nightmare to defend. I guess we all knew how it was going to end."

"Then why didn't you just surrender? Negotiate peace? Mercenaries of all people should be smart enough to recognize what side of the bread has the butter on it." Nick felt himself getting angry. "Might have saved us all some grief."

"And if we had, then what? Be the military arm of the Commonwealth? Paid soldiers marching at the command of our masters in DC and Goodneighbour? We were done with that, too."

There was silence. Nick poked at the fire, watching it flare up in sparks. "Well, I'm sorry," he said at last. "Sorry it worked out that way. For all of us. The way things are looking, we could use a few more like you right now."

"Not all of us tattooed our blood types on our foreheads. There's lots got away in the confusion. Lots still left, too, even after 20 years. They're like me. They've got families, lives, places to call home. We're Commonwealth now. But if those bent-cross friends of yours come knocking, they'll find out we're Gunners, too." He stood up, reaching for his rifle. "I'll take first watch."

From far away he heard the sound of wolves howling, and he wondered what game they hunted.

-OOO-

There was a road, narrow and slick with rain, the asphalt gleaming in the light of the motorcycle's single headlight. Nick hunkered down low over the gas tank, trying to find shelter behind the tiny windscreen from the rain that pelted down. His fingers were numb with cold despite the heavy gauntlets he wore and the rain had soaked through his leather jacket to the skin beneath.

A flash of lightning lit up the countryside, so close he could hear the thunder even over the rush of air in his ears and the howl of the engine. In the light he saw a car pulled over onto the narrow shoulder and sticking partway out into the road. Its hood was raised and a man stood beside it waving frantically. Faces were pressed against the glass: a woman and children, he thought, their features blurred into pale ovals by the rain. He leaned away, swerving to avoid them as he raced past. Urgency ripped at him.

The road was rising steeply, cutting back and forth in a series of steep switchbacks as it left the valley floor below. There'd been an accident here: a vehicle on its roof, its wheels still spinning, another one on its side, and skid marks leading to a smashed guardrail with tire tracks vanishing into the darkness beyond. Headlights splashed at crazy angles through the downpour and across the bodies lying in careless heaps on the pavement, leaking bloody rivers in the rain. He slowed to thread his way through the mess and felt hands reaching for him. A face loomed, mangled and torn, a shard of glass driven deep into one eye, the mouth working in voiceless agony. But there was nothing he could do and he kicked out and saw then man stagger backwards and fall. Then he was past. He wrenched at the throttle and tore away.

He was going too fast, far too fast: for the weather, for the night, for this narrow, back country road twisting through the high hills. But there was no other way. The main highway was full, jammed with people fleeing the cities, and there was no time. He touched his breast where her letter lay folded in its envelope in an inside pocket:

" _It's crazy here. Everyone's leaving, trying to find somewhere safe. Is there such a place? Do you remember your friend's cabin where we stayed that time? It was so beautiful there, just you and me. If the world's going to end, that's where I'd like to be."_

He gripped the throttle and the night raced away on either side.

-OOO-

Nick's eyes flew open and he stared wildly around, trying to remember where he was. The fire was burned to ashes. A cold, grey, light filtered in through the broken roof of the ruined service station. Memory came back to him as the dream slipped away and he sat up stiffly, his joints creaking audibly in the damp morning chill.

Jack lay rolled up in his blanket across from him, fast asleep. He opened his eyes as Nick stirred.

"You didn't wake me up," Nick said.

"You seemed pretty done in," Jack answered, rolling out of his bedroll and rubbing his eyes. "I figured you needed the break."

"What about you?"

"I've marched longer on less." He began stowing his blanket.

Clouds had moved in overnight and the day was cold under a heavy overcast. In the west, dark streaks of rain waved like ragged curtains along the horizon. But for now, the rain stayed away and Jack picked up the riders' trail easily. They ate breakfast as they walked, threading their way through the trees and gaining steadily.

"Nick?" Jack said. It was mid-morning. They were wading across a shallow brook at the edge of a meadow. Trees hung over the bank on its far side, roots exposed where the stream had undercut them. A tumbled-down shack of fairly recent vintage suggested that people had lived there recently, but there was nothing inside it except a few sticks of broken furniture and the litter of a dozen seasons, and no clue as to who lived there or what had become of them.

The riders' trail showed clearly where they'd crossed, standing their horses in the stream to drink before scrambling up the bank on the far side then up the steep valley wall to the crest above.

"What?"

"When you shut down at night, are you sleeping? The way people sleep?"

Nick clambered up the bank, using a tree branch to steady himself then reached back to help Jack up.

"Hard to say," he answered. "I go into a low power mode that gives my systems a chance to recharge, do a little maintenance, that sort of thing." He thought about it. "I suppose it's something like sleep. Why?"

"Because you were muttering away last night. I don't know what about; I couldn't make it out."

"Huh." Nick started up the hillside to the top of the valley. The morning's dream came back to him: the motorcycle careering through the rainswept darkness, the mangled corpses littering the accident scene at the cliff-edge and the rain puddling the blood on the pavement and taking it away in rivers around his wheels.

"I've been dreaming," he finally said. "Visions. Or maybe memories. I'm not sure which."

"What do you mean?"

Nick shook his head. "I don't really understand it myself. My memories end on the day the Institute recorded Nick Valentine's personality onto their machines. They don't start up again until the day I woke up in this body. But lately I've been remembering…things."

"What kind of things?"

"Well that's the funny part. I think they're Nick Valentine's memories. I think he was here. I don't mean before the War. Those things I'd remember. We came up here lots of times in the old days. Good skiing in the winter, hiking trails, that kind of thing. I mean after the bombs fell."

"So?"

"So there's no way I should be able to remember any of that that. Those things happened after my memories were recorded. They didn't happen to me."

-OOO-

About midday the road turned northwest. The trees were starting to thin out here, and in the distance, the Green Mountains spread across the horizon. The riders' trail was pointed directly toward them.

"Not a bad place to hide out," Nick, said, indicating the spot on his map. The two had stopped to catch their breath and their bearings. "It's pretty rugged up there, lots of little valleys to camp out in, plenty of forage for the horse and lots of water. Plus you could see anybody coming for miles. If I were planning an invasion, that's where I'd start out from."

"So what are you thinking?"

Nick pointed to the map. "It depends which way they go. If they stick to the main road they'll eventually hit the Connecticut River, here. That means they'll turn north, follow the valley. It's wide and flat, open country. Good place for men on horseback. Once they get across the river they can make a beeline for the mountains."

Jack traced the route with his finger He was shaking his head. "Nick, I don't think we can catch them. Not with the country opening up here, and not this close to those hills. If you're right and that's where they're headed, we only have a day, maybe less, before they close the door on us."

"I know. So instead we're gonna cut the angle, head 'em off at the pass. Here."

He pointed to a high valley running north from the highway. A thin, grey line showed where a narrow road wound through it before turning sharply to climb up to a notch in the hills and drop down into the river valley on the other side. "They stay on the highway, they have to loop a long ways around to the south before hitting the river. We go this way, we should be able to come out ahead of them."

"But what if we're wrong? Jack said worriedly. "We're taking a real chance here. What if they turn off? Or just keep going?" He pointed to where the line of the highway crossed the river. "They do that, they could be halfway to California before we catch up to them."

Nick shook his head. "It's a chance, I know. But what else do we have? We don't have to worry about them crossing there, anyway. The bridge has been down for years. It's a day's ride north to the nearest ford."

"What if they brought boats?"

"Then I guess we're going to California.

-OOO-

"There they are."

Nick handed the binoculars to Jack. It had been a hellish trek up the remains of the old highway that wound through the narrow, steep-sided valley, stopping to sleep for only a couple hours under an outcropping of rock before pushing on. But the gamble had paid off, for now they were ahead, and for the first time they could see their quarry. The riders were still a half mile away, approaching along the highway that followed the edge of the wide, flat valley below the hilltop where the hunters lay concealed in a clump of bushes. In the distance, the water of the Connecticut River sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight, and snow glistened among the trees in the deep folds of the hills opposite.

Jack put the glasses to his eyes and stared through them. They were in loose formation: two ragged clumps, one trailing the other. They were bareheaded and bare-armed, some of them shirtless in the sunshine, with their weapons slung over their shoulders or hanging from their saddles. He could see their faces clearly through the glasses. They were big men, some bearded and shaven-headed, heavily tattooed, some with the swastika symbol carved into their foreheads. One of them threw something at another, who threw it back. The sound of laughter drifted faintly up to them.

He handed the glasses back. "Nine of them now," he said. "And three empty saddles. They look pretty relaxed for scouts in enemy territory. I guess they figure they're home free."

"Or it's a set up."

"That, too."

Nick scanned the valley up and down and twisted around to look behind him. Except for a hawk riding a thermal high above them, nothing moved. Just below them the little forest road curved around the shoulder of the hill before diving down a narrow coulee toward the main road, some 300 yards below.

Jack eased his sniper rifle off his shoulder. He'd wound a strip of burlap around the barrel to keep it from glinting in the sunlight and now he slid it forward, squirming around to get into firing position. He laid a pair of spare magazines out next to him.

"Here's the plan," he said in a low voice. "You get down there and wait for my signal. Stay hidden. I'll aim for the rearmost rider. They'll be surprised, but that won't last long. If they've got any brains, they'll figure out where I am pretty quick and charge straight up the hill. Wait until they turn then take them from the flank."

"Okay." Nick took another look through the binoculars. "Jack," he said, "I don't see Lily."

"I know."

"We need one of them alive."

"I know."

-OOO-

7


	12. Chapter 12

-OOO-

Lily rode Garrick's mare. The stirrups had been shortened to fit her and a lead rope was tied to its halter, its other end looped over Etienne's saddle horn where he rode beside her. Her hands were in front of her, once again manacled with Rejean's handcuffs. The ropes they had tied her with chafed her wrists badly and cut off the circulation. She pointed this out and after some discussion, Rejean passed his handcuffs and key to Etienne. "Do not lose the key," he had growled.

Etienne ratcheted the steel manacles down on Lily's wrists, making sure they were snug but not tight and testing them to make sure she couldn't slip her hands through them. "Is that better?" he asked.

"Yes, it is." She smiled at him. "Thank you."

" _Ne rien_ ,"he said, waving his hand dismissively. "It's nothing."

Which was unquestionably not true, Lily thought as she poked with her tongue at the little key hidden away in her cheek. She smiled to herself, counting the hours until dark.

They'd gotten a late start, and it was nearly noon when they arrived at the rendezvous point. It had once been a country church with a little cemetery next to it. The cemetery was now forest and the main building had long since collapsed. But the church spire remained, poking up out of the surrounding trees.

"Someone is there," keen-eyed Tomas said to Rejean as it came in sight. He pointed. "See? Up in the bell tower."

Rejean squinted at the distant figure. "Are you sure it's them?"

"Yes, I see the mark carved in his forehead and I can smell the stink from here."

"Rejean Landry!" a voice bellowed from the trees ahead of them. "Is that you?"

"It is, Maxime," Rejean called back. "We are here, as agreed."

"And you are late. We grow tired of waiting for you Gaspé rabbits." The speaker strode into sight. He was a giant of a man, easily six-and-a-half feet tall, and huge, with a barrel chest and arms as thick and as hairy as a gorilla's. He was black-haired, his leathery face seamed with old scars, and his beard hung in braids down nearly to his chest. He nodded at the Gaspésie. "Your numbers are smaller than when we last spoke, Rejean," he said. "You should be more careful. But you will be safe now that the Purlaine are here to protect you."

Then he caught sight of Lily and his eyes lit up. "Oho! And what morsel is this you've brought us?" He leered at her, letting his gaze travel up and down her body. "You have had more luck than us," he said. "All we caught was an old woman hauling wood, all dry and shrivelled and barely worth the effort to hold her still. This one will be a tastier treat."

The other Purlaine had arrived now, too. There were six of them in total, counting Maxime and the lookout in the church tower. The new arrivals were blonde-haired and blue-eyed, shaven headed and shirtless, with tattoos on their arms and chests and the mark of the bent cross – the swastika – carved into their foreheads. The Gaspésie eyed them warily, but Rejean ignored them.

"Maxime," he said, dismounting and throwing his reins to Tomas. He clasped forearms with the bearded giant. "It is good to see you again. We worried you would get lost, stomping around in the wilderness by yourselves. Welcome." Although he was the tallest of the Gaspésie, the bearded giant over-topped him by nearly six inches.

Maxime laughed. "It will be good to leave this stinking place behind us," he said. "Let us go now. You rabbits can scout ahead and we will follow." He tried to let go of Rejean, but his arm would not come free. He frowned. Rejean smiled thinly.

"I think you and I will ride together," he said. "Your men will take turns riding point. They need practise in woodcraft." He pointed at one of them with his chin. "He will start."

Maxime glowered down at him. "It is not you who gives the orders here, Rejean," he said. "We are Purlaine."

"You are blundering oafs and it is a miracle you are still alive," Rejean answered in a soft voice. "Back home is one thing. Here, you are children, and you will do as you are told." He released Maxime's arm and used his finger to trace the path of a newly-healed scar running the length of the big man's cheek. "The knife that made this almost took your eye, Maxime. It would be sad if you were not so fortunate the next time."

Maxime stared down at him, then burst into laughter. "Oh, little rabbit," he said. "We will not be in the wilderness much longer, and then we will have this conversation again."

Rejean grinned wolfishly, his eyes glittering. "I look forward to it, Maxime," he said.

-OOO-

There was no more scouting or map-making now. The Gaspésie had followed this route on their way east and now they were returning along familiar trails. People were only slowly returning to this part of western Massachusetts, just south of the New Hampshire border, and the area between Carlisle Station and the Connecticut river was for all intents and purposes uninhabited. Still, Rejean cautiously kept scouts out: one or another of the Purlaine on point and Tomas, as usual, watching their back trail.

The Purlaine grumbled about this, and also about the pace Rejean kept up. "What is your hurry?" Maxime demanded at one stop. "We will get there when we get there."

"And if the Purlaine keep crying to rest their sore backsides every hour, that will not be until winter. The sooner we get to Fort Apache, the sooner I will be paid, and the sooner I will return home and be rid of this foolishness."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic about our plans."

"The great invasion? I do not care, except that the Purlaine have money to burn, apparently. We will happily take your money. But we will not fight your stupid wars."

"We are allies," Maxime reminded him.

"Say that in Rimouski and see how far it gets you."

Lily stayed close to Etienne and as far away from the Purlaine as possible. He took his duties seriously, making him both captor and protector, and for this she was grateful. She could feel the hungry looks the Purlaine gave her they rode, covert when Rejean was nearby and openly leering when he was out of sight.

That night, Etienne taught her how to cook.

"When you are in the house of Baptiste, you will need to know how to cook a meal," he said as he unlocked her handcuffs and undid the leash from her collar. "He will beat you less frequently that way." Rejean shot him an inquiring look, but Etienne shook his head at his brother, who after a pause, nodded and went back to talking to Tomas.

"I can cook," Lily said defensively.

"I worked Francois Bayard's caravans for three summers," Etienne laughed. "I have seen what passes for cookery in the Commonwealth. I hate to tell you, but while many animals survived the bombs there, squirrels and iguanas are not among them. "

Lily grimaced. "Fair enough," she said. "But I really can cook."

"But can you cook a full meal over an open fire with only one pot?"

"No. When would I want to?"

Etienne held up a pot. "When you are cooking supper over an open fire and you have only one pot. Now here – chop these carrots."

With Etienne's guidance, the meal was edible. Rabbit that Tomas had brought down, seasoned with some rosemary Etienne had found growing wild and with the last of vegetables from the food bag. By the time the meal was over and cleaned up, the sun was down and the night was growing cold. Lily was glad when Etienne brought her back to sit at the Gaspésie fire. By unspoken agreement the two groups ate separately and for this, also, she was thankful, for she could still feel the eyes of the Purlaine upon her, Maxime's in particular.

The Gaspésie were warming their hands at the fire and smoking their pipes, talking of this and that, or boasting of past exploits, real and imagined. Etienne, Lily noticed, stayed out of these conversations. He had found a lump of wood the size of a man's fist and was carving it with his knife.

"What is it?" she asked.

"You will see," was all he said.

She listened to the conversations around her while being careful not to show that she was. Tomas and Rejean were arguing.

"We are almost out of trail meat," Tomas was saying. "Ask Etienne. He will tell you. The stores are almost all gone. One of those bastard Purlaine claims he saw a radstag not a mile from here. It would be enough meat to last us a week."

"No," Rejean aid. "Even if you caught it, it would take two days to dry the meat, and anyone in ten miles would see the smoke."

"So what? There is no one in ten miles."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

"Then we will do as I say. It will not hurt us to go on short rations for a little while anyway. In those two days we would be back at Apache, and once there we can collect our money and go home. They have lots of food in Rimouski."

Tomas rested his hand on Rejean's arm. "They will still be there when we get home," he said, suddenly somber.

Rejean stared into the fire. "What if they are not, Tomas?" he said. "What if they are not?"

"Then we go will find them and bring them back, and afterwards, I will travel to Maine and stick a knife in Bayard's belly myself. Okay?"

"You are a good man, Tomas."

"That is true."

The fire was burning lower and the men beginning to yawn. At the other fire, the Purlaine had been passing a bottle back and forth.

"You must say something," Etienne said, pointing it out to Rejean. "How can they stand watch if they are drunk?"

"They cannot, and that is good," Rejean answered. "I do not wish to wake up with a Purlaine knife in my back. Let them drink themselves into a stupor. We will stand watch, as usual, and if a deathclaw jumps us in the night, perhaps we will let it find the Purlaine first, no?"

Just then, something howled in the distance: a long, lonely call that seemed to hang forever on the still night air. Another cry answered it from closer in, then several others took up the chorus from further away.

Lily shivered. "Is it wild dogs?"

"Wolves," Tomas said. He was smiling. "It is the song of the Gaspé. The wolves beg the moon to come down and join them. On the coldest nights, even the ice sings, and the sky dances for joy. "

The others were smiling, too, even Remy. Etienne nodded at Lily. "You will see," he told her. "After God made the rest of the world, He took what He had learned and made the Gaspé. It is a hard country, but it is the most beautiful in all Creation."

The song ended and Rejean suddenly yawned. "The wolves have given us a lullaby," he said. "Time to call it a night."

Lily looked over her shoulder to where the Purlaine fire had burned itself to embers. Only Maxime was awake now and the bottle was almost empty. As she watched, he finished it, tipping it back and letting it pour down his throat before licking the last drop out of the neck and throwing the bottle into the bushes. He looked back and caught her eye, and winked. Then he stretched out on the ground, pillowing his head on his arm and was snoring in an instant.

Rejean's eyes followed hers. "I think, Lily, you will sleep between Etienne and I tonight. You will be safe from the wolves that way."

"They did not sound hungry enough to attack a person," Tomas said with a frown.

"Those were not the wolves I was thinking of," Rejean said. "Etienne – the handcuffs. We would not want our Lily to start walking in her sleep."

And, feeling the key in her cheek, Lily could only swallow hard and try to keep her disappointment from showing.

-OOO-

Breakfast, which Lily again helped prepare, was thin porridge and strips of grilled meat, after which Tomas policed up the camp as usual – including, with some grumbling, picking up the bottle Maxime had thrown away – and they set off.

Etienne rode knee to knee with Lily and they talked as they went. She continued to be manacled and she still wore a collar with a leash clipped to it, and these things were constant reminders of her true status. But as long she put them out of her mind, it was not an altogether unpleasant morning. She found Etienne's company engaging, for one thing. He was, she realized with a start, only a year or two older than her, and he was interested in the Commonwealth and life in Diamond City. In return he waxed poetic about life in the forests and mountains of the Gaspé. She was wary of giving information to a potential energy and so was careful with her replies, but the questions were harmless, the kind of idle chatter two young people just getting to know each other might normally share, and she found herself enjoying the conversation.

"It sounds nice there," he said, wistfully, "I have only been as far as Bunker Hill. Perhaps someday I will go to Diamond City and see this marvellous Great Green Wall, the wonder of the Commonwealth."

She thought about the Market on a Saturday morning: the noise and confusion, with crowds jostling and music playing, and the sound of conversations shouted back and forth and the different cooking smells drifting up from the food stalls. And she thought about the tinkle of dishware as her mother set the table on Sunday while her father made supper. A wave of homesickness washed over her.

"It is peaceful," she said. "Safe. I miss it."

"Safe is nice," Etienne agreed. "But you know what is nicer?" He pointed. "Wild onion. It is God's gift to food. I would stop and pick some. At home, there is still a foot of snow on the ground! But Rejean is in a hurry and so I must leave it for the mole rats."

"Why?"

"Because they eat anything."

Lily laughed. "No, I mean, why is Rejean in a hurry?"

"Because he owes that pig Bayard money. We lost a load of furs last winter crossing a lake that was not as frozen as we thought. The furs, the sleigh, two good horses and three toes off Tomas' left foot. It is lucky we are even alive to talk about it. But Bayard demanded Rejean's wife and daughters as surety for the money he owes. He will sell them if we don't get back in time."

"What? But that's terrible. Why would he do that?"

Etienne shrugged. "It is the Law. When Baptiste dies, his sons will probably sell you, too. But when that happens, I will buy you, I promise."

"Thanks," Lily said sarcastically.

"You're welcome," he said, seriously. "I would not see you starve to death or be used by any man who crosses your path because there is no one to protect you."

"That's very kind of you. Where I come from, women don't need men to protect them, or if they do, they do it because they love them. And they don't buy and sell them like cows. "

"We also love our women, Lily." Etienne's voice had grown softer. "It is a hard land, I told you. One must adapt, or one dies. It is the same everywhere."

"But you don't think it's wrong that Garrick's father"—her voice caught in her throat as she said the name, remembering afresh the horror of that night—"for him to sell Rejean's family?"

"I very much think it's wrong, not least because Rejean will kill him if he does. But Bayard doesn't know that. Or perhaps he thinks himself safe in his big house in Maine. If he does, he is a fool."

"Really?" Lily fingered the stained leather collar around her throat. "He murdered one wife. Why would he care about another?"

"He did what?" It was Etienne's turn to be shocked. "He did no such thing."

"Didn't he? Then where did the blood stains come from on this collar?"

"From Mariette, his dog. A pack of ferals attacked our camp while we were sleeping. She killed two of them herself before another tore her throat out." Etienne shook his head in admiration. "Rejean killed the feral with his bare hands. I have never seen him weep before."

Lily opened her mouth. "But he said –" She fell silent. Then: "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was a good death. Quick and clean, with the blood of her enemies on her muzzle. When she scratches at the doors of Heaven, the saints will see it and welcome her."

-OOO-

At Rejean's command, they pushed on until noon then stopped by a stream to water the horses and eat. During the break, Maxime approached Rejean where he stood holding a horse while Etienne fixed a loose shoe. Lily, holding her horse while it grazed, watched him out of the corner of her eye.

"We want the girl tonight," Maxime said without preamble. "You can have her back after we are done. But it is only right that you share."

Rejean let go of the horse's bridle and turned to face Maxime. Behind him, Etienne released the hoof he'd been working on and stepped back out of the way, loosening his knife in its sheath.

"You want the girl?" Rejean said in a perplexed tone. "That girl?" He pointed at Lily.

"No," Maxime said sarcastically, "the one behind her with four hooves and the long tail. Yes, that girl. We have not had a woman in weeks. My men are grumbling. They say: 'Mighty Rejean sets his table with the sweetest of meats while we must dine on scraps like dogs. It is not fair'. "

Rejean put his chin in his hand while he pondered the request. Finally, he said: "Maxime, if she were simply a whore whose services we had purchased, I would gladly loan her to you. But she belongs to a man from my village, and honour demands that I deliver her undamaged. Perhaps if you ask him, he will sell her to you. But I doubt it. She is young and very beautiful, and I think he will want her for himself. But perhaps not. Still, it is him you must ask."

"What do you care?"

Rejean shrugged. "Who can say? Perhaps she looks like my mother. In the meantime, remind your men this is why God gave them a right hand. And tell them to stay away from my horses."

"I do not think you can say no to me, Rejean," Maxime said softly, drawing himself to full height.

"We keep having this dance, Maxime," Rejean answered. "It grows tiresome. I am the leader here, and I will say 'no' if I choose. Now back to your horse. We move out in ten minutes, and if you are not ready, I will leave you behind.

-OOO-

They camped that night in an abandoned farmstead in a high valley overlooking the road, which Rejean and the others had found on their way east a few weeks before. A cabin stood there, reached by a narrow pathway that was just starting to be overgrown. It was well and lovingly made, with solid shutters, windows with salvaged glass panes in them and a door carefully closed and locked (but Remy was a master of the lockpicks). Inside, everything was put tidily away. But birds had nested in the chimney and there was dust everywhere, and it had been years since the last time the little patch of garden was planted or the lilac by the door pruned. Whoever had lived there once, they weren't coming back.

"Why did we stop so soon?" Lily asked as she helped Etienne with the horses. "I thought Rejean was in a hurry."

"He is," Etienne answered. "But the poor Purlaine are tired and we are out of food, so Rejean and Tomas are going hunting and we get to lie in the sunshine for a little while. Here-" he held up a wide, heavy brush. "She needs to be brushed, to clean the dirt from her. Like this, see?" He demonstrated. Lily took it from him, holding it awkwardly with her hands shackled together. "Start at the front," he said, "and work your way to the back. He put his hand over hers, drawing the brush in small, tight circles beginning at the horse's shoulder and working his way toward the flank. "It is easier with one hand, but Rejean commands that you must wear these for now. But still…not too soft, but not too hard. Too soft does nothing. Too hard and you will anger her and she may kick you, especially if she is in a bad mood. But if you do it right, she will love you, and a horse who loves you will break its heart for you."

"Why do you do this?" Remy said in French from where he was unsaddling his own horse a few feet away.

"Do what?" Etienne looked at him in surprise.

"Show her things. How to brush a horse. How to tend the fire. How to cook. Treat her like she is one of us. Do you think she will fall in love with you if you are nice to her? And so what if she does? She belongs to Baptiste. Remember?"

"What does he say, Etienne?" Lily asked, her eyes wide.

"Nothing. He says you smell very nice."

Lily laughed. "I don't think that's what he said. But just in case, tell him I smell like … what's the word? _Merde?_ Tell him I'm pretty sure I smell like merde."

Etienne laughed. "You see?" he said lightly to Remy in French, "she makes a joke. Now you will laugh and she will laugh and all will be good in the world."

"Why will I do this?"

"Because I told you to. And because a frightened horse can never be tamed." Etienne's voice took on a steely edge. "Now laugh."

Remy laughed.

"Etienne?" Lily said. She put her hand on his arm.

He turned to her. "What?"

"Will you tell Remy… I know he can understand me. But you have the words and I don't. I know he is upset about Edouard. Will you tell him I'm sorry? Please? I wish it had never happened. I wish none of it had ever happened."

He patted her shoulder. "That is good to know."

"Also, I was aiming at Garrick."

"That is good to know, also."

-OOO-

"Will you show it to me now?" Lily asked.

They were alone. The horses had been fed and watered and bedded down for the evening. The Purlaine had kindled a fire in an outdoor hearth on the other side of the trees, next to the farmhouse and Remy was inside, mending harness. Tomas and Rejean had yet to return, and so Etienne was stretched out with his back to a tree, whittling.

He held up the piece he'd been carving and smiled. It was a tiny bird, like the chickadee they'd seen that morning, its little body folded tightly together save for the long tail sticking out behind and a short, sharp beak in front. It had its head cocked like it was listening, and there was a feeling of movement to it, as if it were on the verge of taking flight.

"It's beautiful," she breathed.

Etienne laughed sadly. "She wants to fly away, I think," he said. "Into the sky. But her wings, they will not open and so she must stay here on the ground. Poor little bird. I know how she feels."

Lily made a face. "I'm sorry she's so sad," she said. "But maybe it isn't the right time yet."

"Or maybe she has found a reason to stay." He held it out. "She is for you."

"Really?"

"Yes. A present. A peace offering, perhaps." He held it out to her again. "Take her."

She took the carving from him and held it gingerly. "Thank you," she said, then handed it. "But I don't have anywhere to put her that's safe. Maybe you can hold onto her for me."

He took it from her and put it into his saddlebag on the ground beside him. "Sure," he said. "For now."

"For now." She started to smile, then grimaced.

"What is it?" Etienne asked.

"I'm not sure—" she sniffed, then made another face. "I suddenly smelled something awful. And I think it's me."

"Probably it is all of us."

"No, really," she said. "I wasn't kidding about the merde earlier. I'm surprised the wolves were anywhere near our camp last night." She looked at him. "I'd really, really like a bath. Just a short one, while everyone else is busy. I saw an old tub around the corner; it's even full of water. Please? I won't try to escape, I promise."

Etienne started to laugh, then stopped. "You are serious? It will be like bathing in a bucket of ice."

"I don't care. I hate the way I smell. Please?"

Etienne sighed and sheathed his knife. "I feel that this is a bad idea, but it's true, you smell terrible."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." He picked up his carbine and held it loosely under his arm then tugged lightly on her leash. "Come, then. Let's go have a look at your tub."

There was a small yard on the other side of the house surrounded by a high, overgrown hedge. An old ceramic bathtub – probably once used as a watering trough for livestock – stood against the wall of the house. It was full of water. Accumulated rainwater and melted snow, she imagined. Leaves floated on the surface, but otherwise it seemed clear. She dipped her hand into it. It was icy cold.

Etienne dipped his hand likewise. He looked at her incredulously. "You want to bath in that?"

She nodded. "Please? I won't try to escape. I promise. You … you don't even have to look away if you don't trust me."

He seemed about to refuse, then shrugged. And he did look away as she undressed, even going so far as to undo her handcuffs and her leash so she could slip out of her sweater.

"I will know if you try to sneak up on me or to run away," he warned as he turned his back on her so she could undress, "and then it will go hard for you. And for me. I am Rejean's favourite brother. But I am also his only brother, so that does not say much, perhaps."

"I won't do anything to get you in trouble," Lily said, slipping out of her clothes and hanging them over a branch. "I just want to be clean again. Don't look! I'm just getting in."

She gasped as she lowered herself into the bitterly cold water. But it was clean and soft and bracing as it washed over her. She lowered herself so that only her shoulders and knees were showing.

"You can turn around now," she said.

Etienne grinned at her as he turned back. "I can hear your teeth chattering from here."

"Awfully, yes. You should try it. But I wish I had some soap."

"Perhaps I will find you some. First, give me your hands." She held up her hands and he locked the handcuffs back on. "Now," he said, "I will find some soap. Do not go anywhere."

She waved her hands so the short chain connecting her wrists jingled. "Where do you suppose I would go? But hurry; I'm going to wet my hair."

Steeling herself, she pinched her nose and ducked her head under water, running her fingers through her hair before surfacing with a gasp. She shook her head back and forth, the water droplets glinting in the late-day sunlight as they sprayed in every direction. Then she shrieked, for standing above her was the bearded giant, Maxime.

"Oho!" he exclaimed. He grinned widely, showing large, even teeth. He spoke in English. "I go for a walk and what do I find? Not a rabbit but a pretty fish, swimming all alone." He put his hands on the tub and leaned closer, staring down at her. "My favourite kind of fish, too. So very tasty."

Lily sat up straight in the water. She flung back her hair and folded her arms across her chest, fixing the huge man with a glare. "Don't be a fool," she said. "Do you think Etienne went and left me all alone?"

The giant smiled slowly, revealing wide, white teeth. "Yes, Etienne. Did Etienne think he would not have to share his little fishy-fish? Silly Etienne. He has much to learn about the Purlaine."

"If you touch me, Rejean will kill you."

"Or perhaps I will kill him. These Gaspésie, they put on such airs for country folk. It's time they learned a little fear. And you, too, little fish. I think the time has come to teach you what it really means to be afraid."

"But this is Rejean's fish, Maxime," Etienne said softly from behind him. The muzzle of his carbine poked into Maxime's neck, just below his ear. "I do not think he wishes to share."

"Etienne," the big man laughed. "You have come to our party. Let us see who else is here." He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, and one by one the other Purlaine stepped into view, weapons raised.

"So, now what will we do, Etienne? You will kill me, perhaps, and then my brothers will kill you. And then neither of us will taste this little fish."

Etienne flicked his glance over at the others then back at Maxime. He licked his lips. "Rejean will be back soon," he said. "I can wait."

The giant threw back his head and laughed. "Little mouse! Etienne the mouse! You will shiver and sigh and wait until your brother returns. And then they will all know who you are. 'Little Mouse' they will call you and every man will spit in your face when you walk by. And one day your brother will not be there, and a real man will kill you." He turned suddenly to face Etienne, batting the rifle barrel out of the way. "Perhaps that will be me. Can you even pull that trigger, Little Mouse? Or do you need Rejean to pull it for you?"

"Etienne, no!" Lily cried out. "He'll kill you."

"' _Esti tabernac_!" Etienne swore, his eyes wild. "I do not need a bullet to kill a pig like you." Throwing aside his rifle he took two steps back and drew his knife. He spat on the blade, taking a knife fighter's stance. "The men of the Gaspé are born with a knife in their hand. I will carve out your heart, Maxime. Draw."

Remy had arrived by then, drawn by the commotion. He stared at the scene with wide eyes.

"What madness is this? Put up your knives, you two. Save them for our enemies."

"Pah," Etienne spat. "These honourless Purlaine are our enemies. We should never have left the Gaspé. But the world will be a cleaner place when I send this _maudit_ to Hell." He turned back to Maxime. "Draw, I said."

Maxime grinned and reached for his own knife. "You see?" he said to the others. "It is a fair fight. He has called me out. Honour demands that I answer. But what of the prize?" His eyes roamed around the circle and lighted on Lily. He licked his lips. "She shall be the prize."

"She is Rejean's."

"Rejean is not here."

He crouched, and the two men circled each other, arms wide, the setting sun reflecting off their blades. Maxime was by far the larger, with longer reach and he moved with the confidence of one who knows his own skill. But Etienne had not been idly boasting, and he struck first and without warning, darting in under the bigger man's reach with an underarm swing at his neck that Maxime dodged only just in time and at the expense of his braided beard, which fell to the ground cut through by the keen edge of Etienne's knife. The watchers roared as the smaller man danced aside, scampering out of reach.

"And now you are shorn, fat sheep," Etienne crowed.

Maxime roared in anger and lunged forward. Etienne again spun out of his way, laying open Maxime's cheek with a back-hand swipe. But with the speed that had surprised opponents in a hundred duels and barroom brawls, Maxime turned, faster than a cat, gripping Etienne's knife hand with his left and raising it above his head, then stepping in to drive his own blade deep into the smaller man's groin. Etienne shrieked.

Maxime pulled him close and sneered down at him. "Good-bye, Little Mouse," he said, then heaved his blade upward, eviscerating him. He stepped back and Etienne collapsed, his entrails spilling out onto the ground.

Lily screamed, her face pale. A heavy rifle barked twice and Rejean strode into the circle with Tomas behind him. He looked around, taking in the scene, then felled Maxime with a blow from his gun barrel. He shoved the muzzle into the big man's face.

"Tell me why you should not die," he snarled in French, his face suffused with rage.

"It was a fair fight," Maxime protested, raising his hands. "Ask them. He called me out. Honour demanded it."

"Is this true?" Rejean demanded, looking at the others.

"Yes, Rejean," Remy said. "It happened that way. I saw him speak the challenge. "

No!" Lily screamed in English. "It was Maxime. He egged him on. Before Remy got here. Called him a coward. It was Maxime's fault."

"Silence!" Rejean turned on her raising his hand. She flinched but held her ground, her eyes flashing. "Silence!" he repeated. " I will hear no more from you."

"Rejean…" It was Etienne, his voice barely a whisper. He was curled around himself, his arms wrapped around his belly as if to close the door that had so disastrously opened. Rejean fell to his knees beside him.

"Etienne… what happened? Did you challenge him? Was it the girl? Did something happen with the girl?"

"I did. That fat pig. I almost had him." Etienne shook his head weakly. "Give me his beard to take with me, brother. It will be a good story to tell the others when I get to Hell."

"You will sing with the angels, my brother. I will see that the priest prays for you when I get home."

"That old faker couldn't pray a saint into heaven."

"Then I'll send him to Hell to wash your feet."

"Good." He laughed, then jerked in pain. "Rejean," he whispered, "it hurts so much. I did not think anything could hurt like this."

"It will be over soon, Etienne. Close your eyes, little brother."

Etienne opened his eyes and looked off into the distance. He smiled. "There is something you must tell me first. Am I really your favourite brother?"

Rejean smiled at him. "Yes, _mon cher_. Truly you are. Now sleep." As he spoke, Rejean took his knife from his belt and drew its keen edge swiftly across Etienne's throat, turning him to direct the rush of blood away from himself. He held him like that as the dying man jerked twice, then was still.

Gently, Rejean let the body slump to the ground. He stood up, wiping the blood from his blade.

"You, Maxime," he ordered, pointing. "Bury him. Deep enough that he will not be disturbed. Wait." He cut a lock of Etienne's hair and put it in his pocket, then picked up the shorn length of beard where it lay and tucked it inside his brother's coat. "Now he's ready. Go."

"What about his gear?" Remy asked.

"Distribute it. Weapons, ammunition... Not his knives. They go with him, too. And bring the girl here." Rejean turned around. Lily's clothes still hung on the tree by the watering trough. But the handcuffs she'd been wearing were on the ground beside it, and of the girl herself, there was no sign.

-OOO-

The hunt had ranged up and down the length of the little valley, until darkness made Rejean call it off. A few wet footprints showed where she'd slipped around the corner of the house and down the walk toward the tiny stream that led off through the trees. The bank was all smooth, rounded stones, and they held no trail. Rejean sent his men in two groups, upstream and down, splitting up the Purlaine among the Gaspésie.

"She is to be returned unharmed. She is mine, and mine only. Is it clear?"

"What about Edouard's brother?" Remy asked.

"Piss on him. I have lost a brother too."

Rejean sat on a stump and waited while the sun went down, watching Maxime, who grunted and swore as he hacked a grave deep into the stony ground. Finally, it was dug and with the darkness the men were returning, empty-handed.

"Rejean, to hell with her," Remy said tiredly as he helped ease Etienne's body into the cold earth. "Nothing good has happened since that fool Garrick brought her to us. First Edouard, then Garrick himself, now him." He pointed with his chin at the body. "Let her die out there."

Rejean grunted, then cursed as he lost his grip on the body. He stumbled and swayed on the edge of the grave then let go, as did Remy. Etienne tumbled into the hole, rolling over as he fell. He landed face up, and his eyes stared glassily at his brother.

Rejean shuddered. "Fill it in," he ordered Maxime curtly then turned away. The big man sneered at his retreating back, then spat into the grave before returning silently to work.

-OOO-

The moon was westering by the time Rejean returned to the little bedroom that he'd taken as his own. He entered, closing the door behind him. The window and shutters were open, and a thin shaft of moonlight peeked in between the curtains. He leaned out to fill his lungs with the cold, night air. There was an oil lamp on a table beside the bed, which he lit and set on the dresser before unhooking his belt and hanging it on a peg on the wall. He sat down on the edge of the bed and began to unlace his boots.

"Come out from under there," he finally said in French.

There was silence. He waited.

"I know you understand me," he said, still in French. "Come out now, or I'll drag you out by the hair."

There was a scuffling sound and Lily eased herself out from underneath the bed where she'd been hiding. She was naked, and dirty from the dust beneath the bed, with a scrape on one knee and the remains of a tattered cobweb dangling from her hair. She pulled away from him, drawing her knees up to her chin and staring up at him wide-eyed.

"Come here," he said, reaching for her. She skittered out of reach, trying to cover herself with her hands.

He kicked off his boots. "You're a clever one," he said. "Someone less clever would have kept running. We would have caught her in minutes. That would have been bad for her, because in my anger I would have let Maxime have her, to make her pay for the death of my brother. But I am no longer angry, and it is not your fault my brother was young , or that he thinks only with his heart."

His eyes glittered and he pointed at the scrape on her knee. "You left a little of yourself on the window sill when you came in," he said. "I saw it there as I walked by outside: a dark spot against the white paint in the moonlight. 'Why is there blood there?' I asked myself. It was not Maxime's, or Etienne's. I know, for their blood was spilled on the other side, away from the window. Nor was it the kind of spot a stray drop might make after flying through the air off the tip of a knife. Then I thought about your track: a few wet footprints, leading away along the stones and then disappearing. And I thought 'How clever you are, Lily of Diamond City, to trick us so well.' And brave. You would have been in full view when you climbed into the window if anyone had been looking. But we were all watching Etienne die. And tomorrow, when we rode out, you would still be here, hiding safe and warm in the last place I would ever have thought to look, beneath my own bed." He shook his head in admiration.

"Someone did look," Lily answered. "Etienne. He watched me the whole time."

"And said nothing. Then he was a fool."

"Was he? It was not his fault, that duel. It was Maxime."

Rejean smiled sadly. "I don't think it was. I think it was you. All of it." He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her toward him. She gasped, falling forward on her knees, and then caught herself as he dragged her closer.

"Let me see you," he said. "Let me see what it is my men keep dying over." She tried to cover her breasts with her hands but he slapped them away. He held her like that, starting down at her. Then:

"Stand up," he said.

She shook her head. "Stand up," he repeated. "You belong to me now. By the laws of my people, which are the only laws that matter here, you are my property. I have paid the blood price for you. So, Lily of Diamond City, you will stand. Or I will give you to the Purlaine after all. You've been very smart so far. It would be unwise of you to suddenly become stupid."

Lily drew herself to her feet. She brushed the cobwebs out of her hair then let her hands fall to her sides. She turned a little, and the lamplight struck golden highlights off the tips of her breasts and the curve of her belly, before disappearing into the shadows below.

Rejean looked at her appreciatively. "Very pretty," he said. "But pretty doesn't matter that much in the Gaspé. Can you skin a caribou and carry the meat home on your back? Can you squat down and give birth, then go back to cutting wood for the fire? Can you watch your sons die in battle and still have the heart to make more?" He crossed the space between them and took her in his arms. She froze, then closed her eyes and made herself relax into his embrace.

He stroked her hair meditatively. "Perhaps you could," he finally said. "You are strong. You have fire, and a will to live, and you are not afraid. But you have much to learn. Too much. Perhaps I could teach you, but how many more men would die in knife duels before that happened?"

"Please, I –"

He hushed her. "Stop," he said softly. "I will hear no more. It is time to put an end to this witchery of yours."

"What do you mean?" She stared at him, her blood gone cold.

He pushed her away. "Go," he said. "You are free."

"Free?"

"Free." He pointed with his chin at the window. "Go the way you came. No one will hear. They are drinking by the fire or fast asleep."

"What about my clothes? My things?"

"Your bag is beneath the window, next to your boots and clothes."

"And my gun. You took my gun. It was my grandmother's."

He stared at her. "Very well," he finally said. He fished it out of his pack along with a box of shells. "It is a pretty thing. Not so practical, but it might save your life."

She took it and checked the load, then pointed it at him. "Why shouldn't I kill you?" she said.

"Because my men would be on you in minutes. And… I do not think you are the killing kind. I hope not. The world needs fewer of those, not more."

She lowered the gun. Rejean relaxed slightly.

"Follow the stream uphill as far as you can go," he said. "There is a bridge, broken down now, but the remains of a road will take you across into the next valley. Bear right, and you will eventually return to the road we came up on. Don't try to take a horse. They will panic and the others will hear. You will travel just as fast on foot anyway, and leave less trace."

"What about you?"

He shrugged. "I go home, to buy back my wife and salvage something from the ruin my life has become. But one day, maybe this year, maybe the next, we will come to Diamond City. Then perhaps we will see, Lily, if you have what it takes to survive in the Gaspé. Now go."

-OOO-


	13. Chapter 13

"You ass," Tomas swore cheerfully. He held up the bloody head of the wild pig Remy had thrown at him, leftover from the carcass he'd butchered that morning. "Why do you even still have this?"

"You never know when you might need a severed head," Remy answered. "And I thought, 'Poor Tomas, always by himself. Maybe he needs a friend.' And now you are not the only pig-headed one in the party."

Tomas laughed and threw it back. "Give it to the Purlaine." He waved at the six riders just ahead of them. "They need all the friends they can get." Then a movement from the hilltop above them caught his eye. "Rejean!" he said, pointing, then the back of his head disappeared in a spray of blood and brains, the crack of the gunshot that killed him hard on its heels. Remy cried out in alarm, dropping the severed head and hauling his horse around as the second bullet took him in the chest, tearing through his heart and killing him instantly. His horse reared and he toppled over backwards. Forewarned, Rejean ducked low and spurred hard; the bullet that was meant for him missed, and he saw the muzzle flash.

"Up the hill," he shouted, turning his horse's head and clapping his heels to its flanks. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the Purlaine fly backward off his horse and heard the heavy crash of a shotgun firing repeatedly. Staying low, his head against the horse's neck, he spurred her into a gallop. "Fly my beauty," he murmured in her ear, sliding his carbine out of its boot and jacking a shell into the chamber. "Give me all your heart now, for both our sakes." He kicked her flanks again and felt the great muscles beneath him bunch and flex as she pounded up the slope.

-OOO-

Jack licked his lips and watched the riders approach. Nine of them, laughing in the sunlight, a string of three riderless horses following behind. He squirmed over a little and sighted down the barrel at the hindmost rider, a stocky, dark-haired man. Ahead of him rode a shaven-headed man with a blonde beard. They'd go down easy, like shooting sheep in a pen. After that things would get messy.

The magazine of the bolt-action rifle he carried held three shots plus one in the chamber, and he had three more magazines laid out in easy reach. Thirteen rounds, total. Bad luck for someone. It would take half a minute, he guessed, for the riders to get from the valley floor up to where he lay hidden by bushes in a shallow depression on top of the hill. Nick would draw some of them off, but it was up to him to keep the rest from gaining the hilltop.

He watched them riding unawares in the sunlight of a bright spring day and tried to make himself feel pity. But there was nothing, only the cold certainty that his youngest child was gone and these were the ones responsible. There was a debt owing, and it was time to collect. Nick would be in position by now, Jack was sure. His lips twitched. He led the last rider by fractions of an inch and slowly, gently, squeezed the trigger.

He grunted in satisfaction as the first rider died, then shifted to the second target, pulling back the bolt to eject the spent cartridge and chamber a new round. The empty shell casing spun through the air, glittering in the sunlight as it fell to the ground. He shot the bolt home, propped himself up on his elbow again, sighted and fired. Another horseman went down. He worked the bolt again and another empty casing flew. There was shouting now, riders turning and some milling in confusion and his third target – an older man on a tall, black horse – spurred ahead at the last instant and the bullet missed.

Only two riders had turned uphill, desperately spurring their mounts up the slope toward him. He glanced over to where Nick had stepped out into the open, firing steadily at the riders bearing down on him. There were three still in the saddle there, and he stood between them and the shelter of the coulee behind him. Jack swung around and squeezed off a careful shot, emptying another saddle, then unhurriedly popped the empty magazine out and slapped in a fresh one.

A memory surfaced: a rooftop in Quincy; leisurely picking off targets as the Commonwealth's farmer militia rushed the perimeter. A bitter-faced, dark haired woman killed instantly by a shot that passed through her from side to side, the man with her flinging away his rifle with a cry and cradling her in his arms until the next bullet came and sent him spinning into the darkness after her. Just people trying to reclaim their homes. On bad nights, he could still see their faces and hear their cries.

-OOO-

Five-to-one were pretty long odds, Nick thought, even coming from ambush. He watched the riders approaching the spot where he hid in the bushes at the foot of the ravine. It would be good cover for anyone who made it that far to get up to the hilltop. Part of his job was to make sure no one made it that far.

He slipped the safety off his shotgun. The sun was warm on his back and he could hear the soft sigh of branches waving in the breeze and the buzzing of a bee working its way through some early flowers. The voices of the approaching men reached, him: laughter and snatches of conversation, and the valley turning green after the long, wet, New England winter. The world was at peace. He muttered an apology to it for what he was about to do. But he remembered Mona, the girl from Sawyer's Crossing, and he could see the three riderless horses trailing behind the group, and fear for Lily hardened his heart. He sighted on the lead rider, a gangly-looking blonde-haired man, shirtless with a swastika carved in his forehead, and waited.

A shot echoed down the valley from the hilltop. A stocky, dark-haired man at the back of the group died first, than another, and then there was shouting and orders bellowed and riders spurring for cover. Nick stepped out and fired. His fight-or-flight reflexes had kicked in and his body was feeding combat chemicals into his circulatory system. The world slowed down. He fired a three shot burst, resisting the panicky urge to go full auto. Shells were limited and there wouldn't be time to reload. He heard the booming of the shotgun as if from a long way away, felt it kicking him in the shoulder. Boom, boom, boom, the shots slow and deliberate to his hyped-up senses.

The first rider went down, his head exploding, and Nick tracked to the next one, taking him in the body. The man pitched sideways and his horse reared and fell. The two went down together, the horse on top, and Nick heard the deep-toned, explosive pop of the femur breaking; a sound that once you've heard you can never forget. The man screamed but Nick was still firing. Two down and two more urging their horses up the long slope to the hilltop. Three to go, and they were almost on top of him.

Then a shot from the hilltop snatched one from the saddle. Only two left, but they were breaking for the safety of the coulee, spurring towards him and firing as they came. Nick aimed at the lead rider but a bullet shattered his knee and he went down. His shot went wild, hitting the horse instead. The rider leaped free as the great beast went down, losing his grip on his carbine, and then he was on top of Nick, a knife in his hand. The two rolled over. The man was strong; lean and hard and compact, but even with one leg hanging useless, he was no match for Nick and he screamed in terror as his brown, human eyes met Nick's blazing yellow mechanical ones. Nick grabbed his knife hand in an unbreakable grip while his other hand – the metal one, the one with all the skin stripped off - clamped around his throat. The man's scream cut off suddenly. It would have been simple to choke him into unconsciousness for interrogation later, but the other rider had leaped the pair and was turning into the ravine and so Nick squeezed and the man's neck snapped like a twig.

But it was too late. The last rider had made the safety of the ravine and was galloping toward the hilltop.

-OOO-

Rejean raced Maxime for the top of the hill. He was counting shots as he rode, his body crouched low alongside the saddle and his head even with that of the horse. Three, then a fourth, then silence. A respite, as the sniper reloaded. He could hear screaming as the Purlaine died in the valley below, and he grinned as he snapped off a shot then jacked another shell into the chamber and fired again. A bullet whistled past his cheek. He could see the outline of the sniper, hidden among bushes and partly sheltered by the hilltop.

He was screamed, a mindless, wordless war cry and his horse lunged forward, thundering up the slope toward the enemy, its hooves beating like a war drum. He moved as it moved, steadying the short-barrelled rifle against his body while he waited for the moment of stillness at the top of the stride and when he reached it he fired and was rewarded by a cry of pain from above.

-OOO-

Jack fired once, missing. He cursed without heat. Both riders were shooting at him, the bullets buzzing and snapping through the bushes around him. Nick was down, he saw, with an unhorsed rider on top of him and another still on horseback. Jack swore again and switched his aim to fire at that one, but he was in a hurry so he missed, clipping a length of hair from the horse's tail, and he saw the rider escape into the ravine.

The other two were almost on top of him now. _Enough of this fooling around,_ he thought. He aimed, carefully, sighting on the big man's huge chest and timing his shot to the movement of the horse. His finger touched the trigger, and then the other man fired from where he crouched low alongside the saddle and pain blossomed through Jack as a bullet shattered his rifle barrel and tore through his right hand and arm. He screamed as the rifle was knocked from his grip. But the shooter was down and his horse was rolling on the ground, making terrible noises and Jack rolled onto his back reaching awkwardly cross-body to draw his pistol left-handed. _Should have had it out already_ he thought clawing at it. _Rookie mistake. Dammit, dammit, dammit._ Then the big man was there, vaulting from the saddle, stomping down hard on his wrist and kicking the gun away.

-OOO-

It was small, as holes go; an animal burrow of some sort, but wide enough and deep enough to take the front leg of a galloping horse and snap the bone cleanly in two midway between fetlock and carpal joint. It broke with a sound like a gunshot and the horse screamed an almost humanlike cry of pain and distress as it went down. Rejean somersaulted over its head. He rolled as he landed, pain tearing through his knee and shoulder. But he kept his grip on his rifle and he sprang to his feet, wincing at the pain. Behind him the horse cried out as it tried to heave itself upright. Pain of a different sort shot through him and he turned and fired once, and the screaming stopped.

Maxime had made the top of the hill and had the wounded sniper down and his knife out. A man in his forties, Rejean saw, about his own age and dressed in military garb. There was something familiar about him, he thought. Suddenly, he smiled.

"Maxime," he called in English, coming up. "Do not kill him. He is a soldier. We need him for the information he carries."

"Piss on that," Maxime sneered. "All your men are dead, Rejean. You are not the leader here. I will kill him when and how I choose."

"I say not." Rejean said it softly, but the menace in his voice was unmistakable. "Maxime, turn around."

Maxime turned slowly, his knife in hand but his foot still planted firmly on the sniper's wrist. Rejean had raised his carbine and was pointing it at his chest.

"You killed my brother, Maxime," he said, still in English.

Maxime shrugged. "He called me out."

"That is true. But then you spit on him in his grave. He did not deserve that." Rejean's finger caressed the trigger. "You are very quick for a big man, Maxime, but are you quicker than a bullet?" And then his finger twitched and a bullet exploded out from the barrel. But something must have telegraphed the move – a change in the set of his shoulders, perhaps, or just the look in his eye, for Maxime lunged, faster than thought and bullet and blade earthed themselves simultaneously.

Maxime staggered back a step, then stopped. He shook himself and looked down at the blood stain spreading rapidly across the front of his shirt. He smiled at Rejean and pointed at the knife handle protruding from his chest. "I think we will finish this conversation in Hell," he said. Then he toppled unbending, falling like a forest giant after the last stroke of the axe to lie unmoving in the tall grass, his eyes staring up at the blue sky.

Rejean sagged to his knees, his rifle falling from his hands. He touched the knife sticking out of him as if noticing it for the first time, then slipped sideways and lay still.

Jack, free to move again, suddenly heard the sound of hooves thudding out of the ravine and realized his peril. His .44 was still on the ground where Maxime had kicked it and he scrambled toward it, nursing his shattered hand. But the rider had reached the hilltop and was levelling his carbine, and there was no time.

-OOO-

Nick heaved the dead man off him and rolled over and got to his knees. Except for corpses, he was alone. But the two riders had reached the hilltop. One of them had been unhorsed, but it didn't matter. If they'd gotten that far, it meant Jack was already dead. What the hell was he going to tell Annie?

The thing to do was to grab one of the fallen carbines and try to pick them off or ambush them from the ravine. There wasn't anything he could do for Jack. There'd be a payback, but that might have to wait. What he had to do now was survive.

He was scrambling to his feet as the thoughts went through his head. He was still at pretty long-range for a short-barrelled rifle, but it was better than the shot gun, which was useless from this distance. He scrambled to his feet and his bad leg collapsed under him. His pain response circuits flicked to overload and he bit back a scream as he fell. He rolled over, damping down the pain to manageable levels. There was a rifle in the grass just a few feet away and he dragged himself toward it. Looking over his shoulder he could see something going on at the hilltop. One of the riders fell then the other, and there was movement from Jack as he scrambled to reach something. The last rider broke from cover at the hilltop and levelled his rifle. Nick's outstretched hand reached the carbine. He rolled over on his back, ignoring the pain as he jacked a shell into the chamber and aimed, knowing he was too late.

-OOO-

Jack's outstretched fingers touched the butt of the .44. He grabbed for it convulsively, waiting for the bullet that would end his life. He heard the first gunshot, distant and unreal and he tensed. But the blow didn't come and he clutched the pistol and rolled over to see the rider dropping his rifle and clutching at his belly. The next shot took him in the chest and he started a scream that was cut off by the last bullet, entering through his open mouth and exiting the back of his head in a shower of brains and bone fragments. He flopped over backwards and slipped from the saddle, falling to the ground with a heavy thud.

Jack turned his head the other way. His jaw dropped. It was Lily: clothes stained and torn, hair awry, her face streaked with dirt, and her chest heaving with exertion, appearing as if by magic at the opposite crest of the hill. She held her grandmother's .38 in a two-handed grip, a wisp of smoke curling up from the barrel. He blinked, twice, and without thinking rested his full weight on his wounded arm. Pain blew the top of his head off and he fainted.

-OOO-


	14. Chapter 14

Lily slipped over the windowsill and disappeared into the darkness; a white shadow flitting through the trees in the pale moonlight. Her feet, hardened by years of going barefoot at every opportunity, barely noticed the stones along the bank of the little brook or the pine needles and twigs of the forest floor. Only when the sounds of the Purlaine camp had long faded to silence behind her did she stop. Two half-fallen trees leaned drunkenly against each other in a tangle of roots and branches, and she squatted in their shelter trying to control her breathing and the pounding of her heart. She listened for the sounds of pursuit, fearful that her freedom was just a cruel jest Rejean was playing. But there was nothing. The forest was silent. She was free.

She dressed quickly, pulling up her jeans and buckling on her gun belt before slipping her sweater down over her head and holstering her pistol. The weight of it felt good on her hip. There were socks in the bag, and she put them on, then slid her feet into her boots and laced them up. Feeling around in the bag once more, she felt a bedroll and a packet of food and something else, something hard and irregular, about the size of a man's fist. She pulled it out. It was the chickadee Etienne had carved.

There was a note attached to it, written all in capitals in a neat, strong hand. She spread it out and read it by moonlight:

 _Etienne was a fool_ [it said]. _I blame his mother, my father's second wife, who was young and full of joy, and believed a boy should be raised to see beauty in the world around him._

 _I have a memory of him as a small child running barefoot across a high meadow in the sunshine, laughing as he reached for the birds that flew up around him. We laughed too, his mother and I, and I told him to wait and stand still, that the birds would come to him if he was patient enough. But he never could stand still, my beautiful boy._

 _I will always remember that moment and my little Etienne. And now, Lily, so will you._

Lily held the carved bird to her chest. She closed her eyes, imagining the little boy running in the sunshine, chubby fingers clutching at the air. Behind her she could hear the brook gurgling quietly among the rocks. Upstream somewhere there was a broken bridge and a road that led through a notch in the hills down into a valley that would take her home.

But she wasn't going home.

Anger burned in her. Anger and shame, rage and humiliation, and all the pent-up feelings of powerlessness and remorse that had been building up over the last few days and which now poured over her like a dam bursting, until she felt like she was swimming in a lake of fire. She could not go home. Not like this: the empty-headed girl, too stupid to see the malice behind a pair of pretty eyes and a glib tongue; who'd fallen blindly into a trap any six-year-old would have avoided with ease; whose every action after that only made things worse; who owed her freedom not to herself, but to the pity of strangers.

She thought of Garrick and the things he'd done to her and the way he'd died, and she writhed in self-loathing: _My fault, my fault, my fault –_ the cry of generations of victimized women. "If only I'd … If I hadn't… If I'd just …" She thought of Etienne who would never see his home again because of her, and of Rejean, forced to bury his broken heart. She thought of Nick and her father. Were they lying dead somewhere, too? More victims of her arrogance and foolishness?

Her heart cried for vengeance and an expiation of guilt. She imagined herself creeping into the camp, through the bedrolls of the sleeping men, nudging Maxime awake and the look on his face as she emptied her revolver into him. It was a deeply satisfying image, and she dismissed it immediately. It would be suicide to even try. And even if she was successful, it was certain they would recapture her. Would Rejean protect her? She knew he would not. His honour wouldn't allow it.

But they were riding carelessly now and she had a good idea of their route. If she was careful, she could follow them far enough to find out where they were going. A nagging voice inside her warned her that this, too, was foolishness and that the information she already had might be of incalculable value. _Or it might not_ , she snapped back. If the Minutemen had taken captives then anything she knew right now might be redundant. But if she followed Rejean and the others, they would eventually lead her to their base. It was an old bunker, Etienne had said, pre-War, tucked deep into the hills and so well hidden that it was nearly impossible to find. That would be a prize worth all the heartache.

She checked her bag, realizing the decision had already been made. Rejean had packed enough food for four days. Two days to trail them, she thought, then two days back home, and maybe short rations at the end of it but it wouldn't hurt to go hungry a day or two. She wasn't a Gaspésie, born to the woods, but she'd been watching them these last few days, and with patience, she thought, and – remembering Nick's words to her in the Dugout that night – the right kind of luck, she could do this, and return home a survivor instead of a victim.

"You wanted to be Ranger, didn't you?" she said out loud. "Well, this is your chance."

-OOO-


	15. Chapter 15

Lily holstered her pistol and ran stumbling to where her father lay. "Daddy, Daddy," she sobbed, falling beside him, "please don't you be dead, too."

His eyes fluttered open. "I'm still here," he said thickly, reaching for her with his good hand. He winced as she helped him sit up. "And you're okay." He touched her as if to reassure himself it was true. "You're okay. I thought we were too late. What happened? Who are they? Where did you come from?"

"There," Lily pointed with her chin back along the riders' trail. "I've been following them since yesterday morning. I saw you here and came running."

"Really? But – we thought you were their prisoner."

"I was. They let me go."

"They did? Then why on earth – "

But he was interrupted. "Are you alive up there?" Nick called from where he was struggling up the hill using the carbine as a crutch. "I'm coming. Damned leg is half shot off." Lily let go of her father and ran down the hill.

"Uncle Nick," she cried. "Oh my God, what happened to your leg?"

"Stupid raider tried to shoot it off," he said. "Lucky for me, I guess. I think he was aiming somewhere a little more fatal." He grinned at her. "Nice to see you, kid. Helluva chase you led us. "

"It wasn't my idea."

"No, I don't suppose it was. I'm just glad you're okay. And thanks. We came to rescue you. Looks like things worked out the other way." He grimaced in pain. "Now we just need to get home. With my leg, that's going to be an adventure all by itself."

"Here, let me help you." Lily slipped under his arm, draping it over her shoulder, and between that and the rifle, he was able to hobble up the hill to where Jack was trying to bind up his wounded arm one-handed, holding the end of the bandage roll in his teeth and wincing at the pain.

"I've got a stimpack," Nick said as they reached the hilltop. "It's in my pack."

Jack shook his head. "This will do for now," he said. "I have one too. But it's my last one and I don't want to waste it." Stimpacks, which worked by triggering the body's genetic memory to recreate destroyed and damaged tissue, were a miracle of pre-War medical science. They'd always been rare, even back then. Nowadays they were almost unknown.

"Use the damn thing," Nick said. "What good is a stimpack to me? We've still got to get back to Carlisle. The shape we're in, we couldn't stand off a three-legged molerat. And what the hell happened up here, anyway?" he said, looking around at the bodies on the hilltop."

"I screwed up is what happened" Jack said.

"Three dead guys and you're not one of them doesn't much look like a screw up to me."

"No, seriously. Bad planning, bad preparation, bad execution. I guess I'm a bit out of practice."

"Hell, Jack, there's ten of them down and we're both standing, more or less. Don't beat yourself up. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, anyway. When I die, I'm going to get them to put that on my tombstone. Speaking of which," Nick pointed at Rejean, "I think this guy's still alive."

Lily had been deliberately avoiding Rejean's body. Now she turned to see his eyelids flickering. With a cry she fell to her knees beside him.

"Rejean!" she said.

He opened his eyes and looked up at her, blinking. "Lily?" he said, finally. "What are you doing here? But, of course. They found you at last, the hunters you had hoped for. Yes?"

"No," she said. "I found them. I was following you so you'd lead me to Fort Apache."

"Were you?" Rejean nodded in approval. "I said you were brave, didn't I? But I will have some words for Tomas about this when I see him. Is he -?"

"Yes. He and Remy both. I'm sorry, Rejean."

"Sorry for what? We were stupid to be trapped so easily. It is not your fault."

"But it is. All of it. Remy and Tomas and Etienne… even Garrick. If I hadn't been such a little idiot none of this would have happened."

"Maybe, maybe not. Who can say? The stars do not wheel at our command, Lily. We come, we do our little dance, then we move on. Do not blame yourself for the things you can't control."

Jack came up then, cradling his wounded arm. Rejean glanced over at him. "This is your father," he said. "I recognized you when I saw his face. It is good that you have found each other at last."

"Baby, what's going on?" Jack said suspiciously. "Who is this?" He reached for her with his good hand but she brushed him away.

"Daddy, don't," she said, turning back to Rejean. "We have to get this out." She touched the knife hilt. "If we can get you back to Carlisle - they have doctors there. Or … the stimpack. Daddy, I need your stimpack."

"For him?" Her father stared at her incredulously. "Don't be stupid."

Lily opened her mouth, but Rejean only laughed, then grimaced in pain. "I thank you for your kindness, Lily," he said. "But your father is right. And your little machine would only postpone the inevitable for me anyway. But you must go. We are less than a day from the fort; if there is a patrol nearby, they will have heard the gunfire. Even if not, our empty horses will soon find their way home and they will come looking for the riders. You must be far away by then."

"That's good advice," Nick said. "And the sooner we're out of here the better."

Rejean stared at him. "A mechanical man," he said. "We have heard of your kind, even in the Gaspé. The Purlaine are such fools, to think we can conquer with both God and the Devil arrayed against us." He shook his head again. "Lily, my map is in my saddlebag. Your people will find it useful, and its lack will hinder the Purlaine and their stupid war."

"We will. Rejean – I am sorry about Etienne. I… it really was my fault he died."

He made a face. "Was it? Then it was even more mine, for I forgot that a leader must think with his heart as well as his head. I am sorry, Lily, for the things I chose not to see. Perhaps, if you will agree, we can forgive each other."

She nodded. "I would like that."

"I, too."

"I read your letter. He was your son, wasn't he?"

Rejean nodded. "My beautiful boy. When my mother died, my father took a new wife. So young, little more than a child herself. The old goat. But the joke was on him; the spirit was willing, but the flesh -" His lips twitched in a smile. "She and I were of an age, nearly. We knew it was a sin. But the sun shone in her hair and her eyes danced and … she made the world laugh. I promised I would marry her after my father died, but there was a fever one year. Many died, her among them."

"I'm so sorry."

"It was what it was. After that, I met my Elise and the world was right again." He coughed and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "I must ask you a favour, Lily of Diamond City. I will understand if you don't feel inclined to do me favours. But if you will – please pull the knife from my chest."

"But you'll die if I do that."

"Nothing can stop that now. I am tired of this life, and the others are calling. They grow impatient, that we may go down to Hell together and give the Purlaine a good thrashing." He plucked weakly at the knife hilt with his fingers. "I do not have the strength to do it myself," he said.

"Rejean, I –"

"Please, Lily."

With a cry, Lily tore the knife from his wound. He groaned, then choked as the blood came. "I am sorry, Elise," he whispered, and then he died.

-OOO-

It took them tree days to get back to Carlisle Station following the route marked on Rejean's map. They were able to catch one of the horses and Nick, despite his protestations, rode. Lily remained silent for most of the trip, speaking only in monosyllables when she talked at all. Jack left her alone. "She'll talk about it when she's ready," he said to Nick privately. But the old detective drew his own conclusions and his heart ached for the things she'd endured.

On the afternoon of the third day they met a Minuteman patrol, and a day and a half after that, they were back at Carlisle Station.

-OOO-


	16. Chapter 16

Nick was dozing as he rode. They were still a half day out of Carlisle and he was tired. Tired of people, tired of travelling, tired of the pain in his knee and tired of this damned horse. He had a cane now that he'd cut from a dead tree to help him get around, but it didn't help much. Meanwhile, Jack was scouting out ahead with the rangers and Lily was walking alongside, leading the horse and keeping to herself. He looked down at her. He reckoned something pretty terrible had happened during her captivity. He thought about the boy, Garrick, who had been buried alive, and about the kinds of things men can do to women when they think they can get away with it. Not all of them left a mark you could see.

But whatever had happened to her, she wasn't talking about it. Her and Jack had argued heatedly about it the second day on the road.

"Dammit, Lily, what the hell happened back there?" Jack had finally demanded, after repeated attempts to draw her into conversation had failed.

She turned her face away. "It doesn't matter," she said, flatly.

"What are you talking about? Of course it matters."

"Does it? I'm alive. I'm safe. We're going home. It's all good."

"How can you say that? It's clearly not 'all good'. How did you get mixed up with those people in the first place? What did they do to you? And who are they, anyway?"

She glared at him. "They're from a place called Gaspé, up north somewhere. I don't know exactly where. They were scouts for some kind of invasion. And I didn't get 'mixed up with them' as you put it. I killed one, so they beat me senseless and took me prisoner. Later I escaped. Now they're all dead. Okay? You know everything now. Can we stop talking about it?"

"No, we can't. Lily, whatever happened to you, it's affecting you. You need to talk about it."

She turned on him. "Really? Is that what you think? That I need to talk about it? Do you think that will magically make everything go away?"

He spread his hands helplessly. "It's a start. Don't you think?"

"Do you remember when I was little? You said no matter what happened, if I needed you, you'd be there. Remember?"

"Sure I remember."

"Well, I needed you, Daddy. And you weren't there."

After that, the wall of silence between father and daughter was absolute. The awkwardness had spread to the others until it was a morose, sullen group that trudged into Fort Carlisle, each one alone in their own heads. And Nick's head wasn't a place he wanted to be alone in just now. If Jack had failed Lily, then Nick's failure was even greater, for in doing so he had also failed Ellie. And with that as his starting point, he found himself burrowing ever deeper down a long, dark rabbit hole of memory, re-living moments in his life when he'd let down the people who trusted him. Logically, he knew that Lily's accusations and his response to them had no basis in reality. Nor would Ellie have ever blamed him for what had happened to her grand-daughter. But emotion always trumps logic, and the realization did nothing to lift his funk.

It didn't help that his charging system was acting up. He'd been working it hard these last few days and although the new battery plates were performing marvellously, they were fighting a losing battle. What he needed was to spend a couple days powered off completely and plugged into an external charger. Instead, here he was.

At least he could nap while he rode. It wasn't much, but it helped. With their ranger escort, and being this close to Carlisle, he didn't feel like he needed to maintain full alertness. So he severed off a tiny snippet of consciousness with orders to keep him from falling off the horse, then closed his eyes and let the darkness cover him.

And from out of the shadows, visions came.

-OOO-

 _The rain was finally letting up. The girl in the seat beside him was asleep against the car door, her arm wrapped protectively around the baby in her lap. She was snoring softly. The road crested a hilltop and started down a switchback into a valley. There were lights down below; a town. He didn't know which one. There'd been a pile-up on the highway a ways back; a big rig carrying flammables had crashed into the back of a line of stopped cars sending a sheet of flame into the sky. He'd pulled off onto a side road that wasn't much more than a pair of ruts winding through the hills, and in short order gotten completely lost. He'd finally found his way back onto a highway. But which one, or even which direction he was heading, he didn't know._

 _He was loathe to wake up the girl after all she'd been through. But he needed to know where they were. He nudged her gently._

" _Kid, wake up," he said._

" _Wha-?" she looked at him in confusion and then alarm, then her eyes widened as memory flooded back. "What's going on?" she said, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. "Where are we?"_

" _I'm hoping you can tell me." He pointed to the lights below. "I got a bit turned around. Any idea what town that is?"_

 _She frowned, squinting past the raindrops on the windshield. "Swanzey, I think," she finally said. "Yes, it has to be. There's the covered bridge next to the lodge, and you can see the lights of the hospital on the hill above it."_

" _Good."_

" _Is that where we're going?"_

" _Yeah. Meeting someone there, I hope."_

" _Who?"_

" _A friend."_

" _A girlfriend?"_

" _Something like."_

 _She studied his face in the light from the dashboard. The baby in her arms made a sleepy noise and began nuzzling at her so she undid her shirt and held it up to her breast where it latched on and began suckling contentedly. Finally she said: "Then what?"_

" _Gonna try to make it to a place I know up north. I'm hoping we can hole up there for a while and maybe ride this craziness out. Although it looks like half of New England has the same idea."_

 _The girl looked down at the child at her breast. "What about us? We got nowhere to go."_

" _We'll figure out something."_

" _Okay." She sounded doubtful._

 _He patted her knee awkwardly. "Look, kid, don't worry about it, okay? I won't just dump you at the side of the road. I promise."_

" _Okay."_

 _Realizing he didn't know, he said: "What's your name, anyway?"_

" _Maude," she answered. "Maude Kelly."_

-OOO-

"You knew me."

Nick stood in the office doorway, leaning heavily on his cane. It was mid-afternoon. The rangers were heading up to the fort, taking Jack and Lily with them. But he'd asked to be dropped off at Mother Kelly's. It was possible his dream this morning was nothing more than random synapses firing in a brain that was over-tired and over-stimulated. But the whole thing felt too real, like part of a wider narrative that someone was feeding him bit by bit. He was tired of questions. It was time for answers.

She was sitting at her desk entering figures in a ledger book. Her hair was tied up in a loose bun held in place with a pair of what looked like chopsticks stuck in at right angles to each other, and she was wearing her tattered pink bathrobe and slippers with rabbit ears on them. The bathrobe had fallen open and he could see she was wearing an old pair of men's flannel pyjamas underneath.

"You came back," she said, smiling at him and putting down the pen. She tucked in her robe and re-tied it, then patted her hair into a semblance of order. "And me without my hair and makeup. Didn't anyone tell you it's bad luck to enter a lady's room unannounced?" She got up. "Did you find your girl? And what happened to your leg?"

"We ran into some bad guys. It's a long story. But Lily's fine, I think. My knee, not so much."

"I'm so glad. About Lily, I mean, not your knee." A pair of overstuffed c hairs sat in a corner on either side of a small, round table and she took his elbow and guided him to one. "You look terrible," she added as she helped him sit down. "Would you like tea? Or something stronger?"

He sank gratefully back into the cushions and set the cane down beside him. "Whiskey would be nice, if you've got it."

"What kind of whorehouse would it be that didn't have whiskey?" She took a bottle and glasses down from a cabinet and poured two drinks, handing him one and putting the bottle down beside him before perching on the edge of the other chair and turning to face him, one leg crossed over the other.

"So what can I do for you, Nick?" she said. She paused to sip her drink. "I'm gathering this isn't precisely a social call."

"What do you know about Nick Valentine?"

She cocked her head at him. "I don't understand. Everyone knows about Nick Valentine. Diamond City's number one private eye. The hero of the Commonwealth, destroyer of the Institute. Half man, half machine. There was even a stage play about you a few years back. 'The Beautiful Heart'. A travelling company put it on here at the old theatre."

Nick made a face. "I heard about that. Couldn't bring myself to go see it. But that's not the Nick Valentine I mean. When Jack and I left, you said: 'Come back to me this time.' Kind of implies I'd left you once before. But that's a problem for me, see, because I don't remember anyone named Maude Kelly. That means it's him you're talking about. The real Nick Valentine."

"Go on."

"I've been dreaming. Mostly when I shut down, but also sometimes just when I close my eyes. Visions, maybe. Like flashes of memory. Places I've never been. People I've never met. It's like I'm remembering someone else's life. It has to be Nick Valentin, but that's not possible. I may have his memories, but only up to a point. No matter what I may think, I'm just a synth created by the Institute. I'm not Nick Valentine."

"Yes you are!" she said fiercely. She put down here drink and took his hand. "Everything about you. Oh, you don't look like him. He was taller than you, and broader across the shoulders. And he had the most beautiful green eyes. Not that yours aren't beautiful, too," she added hastily. "But everything else – the way you talk, the way you walk, the things you say … they're him."

"I had a dream about you. We were in a car, driving through the mountains. You had a baby with you."

She nodded. "Leo. He slept the whole way once he settled down. Didn't cry even once." She smiled a small smile at the memory.

He shook his head slowly. "So it's true? It really happened?"

"Yes."

Then something inside him clicked, like a door opening, and he was somewhere else.

-OOO-

 _Lightning flashed, outlining the hills above the road and the shiny, wet pavement under the motorcycle tires. Thunder followed, rolling back and forth across the sky. He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them again, blinking away the image seared into his retinas by the lightning. In the returning darkness he could see coloured lights flashing ahead of him and vehicles with military markings parked at an angle across the road. Headlights bored tunnels through the falling rain and reflected off wet windshields, the trails of raindrops splashed to pieces by the wipers as they swept back and forth. He slowed, downshifting. Two men in hooded raincoats with National Guard insignia stepped out to bar his way, waving him to the side of the road. A pair of cars were parked there on the shoulder, one with its trunk open. A checkpoint, then. But why here?_

" _Stop right there," one of the Guardsmen said as he approached, holding his hand up, palm out. He looked young and scared, Nick thought; not much more than a boy. The regular army had been mostly out in Alaska or trying to keep the peace in Canada and Mexico when the bombs fell. Didn't leave much for home defense. The other man was older. Neither one had shaved recently. But who had?_

-OOO-

"Nick, what is it?"

"What?" he looked at her in confusion.

"You were just staring into space. What's the matter?"

"There was a roadside checkpoint," he said huskily. "In the rain. And men in uniforms…"

-OOO-

 _There were two more in the shadows by one of the cars. They had weapons raised, pointing at him. He could hear the quick "thunk-thunk-thunk" of windshield wipers on high and the sound of the rain bouncing off the metal car bodies as he put down the kickstand on the motorcycle and switched off the engine._

" _Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Lasers," he said, "seconded to Boston PD. I'm on assignment."_

" _Yeah?" The older man had sergeant's chevrons on his sleeve. "Bugging out , more likely," he said. "Either way you're out of your jurisdiction. You better show us some ID." The weapons stayed raised._

" _Whatever you say, Sergeant." Nick motioned to his left breast. "I'm going to open my coat and pull it out now. Nice and slow so you can see what I'm doing. It's all good. Right?"_

" _You better hope so." The man lowered his weapon and reached out a hand._

 _Nick unzipped his jacket and dipped his hand two-fingered inside it for his ID packet. Something was wrong here. They were too nervous, even for the barracks-house scrapings that passed for home guard these days. He flicked his glance across the scene. Lightning flared again and he saw it: a pair of feet sticking out from behind the front tire of one of the parked cars._

 _The boy's eyes followed his. "Jesus, Sarge, he seen 'em - "_

-OOO-

"…it all happened so fast," she was saying. He shivered, trying to shake the vision. He could still feel the rain dripping down the back of his neck and see the sudden panic on the boy's face.

She was still talking. "Grampa pulled over like they said. Soldiers. They wanted to see his papers. He couldn't find them. We'd packed in such a hurry. He tried to tell them. But they dragged him out of the car, accused him of being a spy. They were pushing him, yelling and waving their guns, and he was trying to be calm but they were shouting at him, calling him a traitor. Then Denny jumped out. My brother. I guess he thought he could help. So they shot him. Just shot him. Then they shot Grampa. A fourteen year old boy and a 60 year old man; shot them and dragged them off to die on the side of the road. Then two more came and dragged me out, me and the baby, threw me in the back of one of their cars."

She shuddered at the memory. "There was a dead woman on the ground beside it. Her dress was up over her face and they'd left her panties pulled down around her knees. They put their hands on me, there in the back seat of the car, and one of them tried to take my baby. But I fought them. Then there was shouting and the sound of an engine."

-OOO-

" _Shut up, you damned fool!" the sergeant snarled, but Nick was already falling backwards over the motorcycle, then rolling as the rifles boomed and bullets snapped through the space he'd occupied. He came around firing, his pistol in his hand. The boy went down first, a bullet in his chest. He shrieked as he died. The older man dropped for cover behind the motorcycle but Nick shot him through the spokes of the front wheel. There were two bodies behind the car, he now saw: an old man and a teenage boy, both lying slumped in boneless heaps. He rolled past them through the wet grass and down into the ditch as more bullets whined through the air around him from the two soldiers on the other side of the road, then he wormed his way to the back of the car where he could come up in the shelter of the rear wheel. The remaining soldiers were firing non-stop and the air was filled with the crash of gunfire and the sound of window glass shattering as they pumped bullets into the car and the motorcycle._

" _I think I got him!" one called. "Cover me." There were footsteps, and legs appeared on the road. Nick fired at them from beneath the car. He was rewarded by a scream. A body fell into his field of view and he fired again. The bullet made a meaty thud as it struck and the screaming stopped. Nick slipped back into the ditch._

 _The firing stopped. "Bobby? Bobby! Fuck, man –" Nick sprang up. The last man had stepped out of cover and Nick shot him down, then fired again to be sure. He collapsed heavily onto the road. Nick dropped back to the ground and rolled into the ditch then squirmed back up to the front of the car, reloading as he went. He looked out cautiously. Nothing moved except the blood, puddling in the rain._

 _Then a woman's voice: "Someone please help me."_

-OOO-

The vision faded again. He blinked. "What happened next?" he said.

"We piled into Grampa's car and lit out. I jes' tagged along, really. Didn't have nowhere else to go, or anyone to go to. Only Grampa and Denny, and they was gone. Leo's Daddy … he disappeared the day I gave him the bad news." The sound of her voice had changed, Nick realized, taking on a soft lilt that owed more to the West Virginia hill country than to New England. The accent of her youth, he guessed, in those long-ago days more than two centuries past.

"Leo fussed a bit until I nursed him and he finally fell asleep, safe in his Mama's arms." She shook her head. "I'll never forget that night, racing through the storm. Terrible chances you took on that awful highway, but you was in a powerful haste. The whole world was going to hell around us. There was men with guns once, jumped out and tried to pull us over. You just screamed "Get down!" and gunned it right through them. I think you killed one. Ran him over and didn't stop. They fired as we went past; it felt like sledgehammers hitting the car. But we didn't hardly even slow down. Grampa used to say that old car could drive through hellfire itself. I guess he was right. Or maybe he was riding alongside, looking out for us. We got through, anyway."

"Where were we going?" Nick asked.

"To Swanzey," she said. "To find Meredith."

There it was again. Like the touch of a hand on his arm or a voice whispering in his ear.

-OOO-

" _Oh, Nicky."_

 _She sighed contentedly and rolled over to spoon against him. He could feel her skin against his, slick with sweat from their recent exertions. A log collapsed into the fireplace, shooting sparks up the chimney. The fire flared back to life, casting a flickering, orange glow across the room and their naked bodies, entwined together on the bearskin rug on the cabin floor. She pillowed her head on his arm and he wrapped his other arm around her, flattening his hand against her belly and pulling her closer against him._

 _They stared into the fire, listening to it crackle and pop. Through the open window came the hiss of rain on the lake and the sound of wind in the trees. He could feel the cool night air against the exposed skin of his back and he fumbled for the blanket they'd cast off earlier and drew it up around them._

" _I love this," she said, staring into the fire. "Couldn't we stay here? No fighting traffic into the city; no lab reports to file. No stupid Monday morning budget meetings. Just you and me and the bearskin rug, for the rest of our lives."_

" _We could," he said, "but I think Larry's coming out here next weekend, and technically it's his cabin."_

 _She giggled. "Oh, pshaw. You're a cop, aren't you? Can't you just plant some drugs in his apartment or something? I'll make it worth your while."_

 _She wriggled against him and he felt his body responding. He cupped her breast. "Eventually we'll run out of food," he pointed out. "What do we do then?"_

 _She pursed her lips while she thought about it. "I guess we'll just have to eat each other."_

 _He grinned down at her. "Cannibalism, hey? It wouldn't be the first time, I suppose. I'm just not sure how practical it would be in our particular circumstances."_

 _She rolled over and kissed his neck. "I guess we'll just have to find out, won't we? " She bit him gently, then harder, then began working her way downward._

-OOO-

Maude looked at him strangely. "You keep zoning in and out on me. Are you sure you don't need to lie down?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Tell me about Swanzey. I remember the lights of the town. I told you I was meeting someone there. That would be this Meredith, right? Did we make it there?"

Maude opened her mouth to answer, but there was a knock on the door and one of the girls poked her head in.

"Mother," she said, "there's a soldier come down from the fort. She's looking for Mr. Valentine. Says it's urgent."

Nick looked up. "I'm coming, " he said, draining his drink. He nodded at Maude. "We'll finish this later."

"Yes, we will."

Corporal Nguyen, the ranger who'd been with Nate when he'd visited Nick in Diamond City, was waiting at the door. He nodded a greeting at her as he hobbled out onto the verandah, leaning heavily on his cane. "Corporal. Nice to see you again. What's going on?"

"General's compliments, Mr. Valentine, and you're to come up to the fort with me right away." She looked dubiously at his splinted leg. "Can you walk?"

"Slowly, but yes."

"That's not good enough." She put two fingers between her lips and whistled, then waved over a pair of burly soldiers who'd been lounging on the sidewalk nearby. She jerked a thumb at Nick. "Make a chair," she said. "General needs him up at the fort, pronto." And so it was that a few minutes later Nick found himself bouncing up the road that led to the fort, carried on the crossed arms of the two Minutemen, his hands on their shoulders to steady himself.

"They told us Nate was still at the Castle," he said over his shoulder to the corporal who was jogging alongside.

"He just got here," she told him. "There's been fighting. Raiders hit Diamond City last night. The same bunch that hit Sawyers, sounds like."

Nick felt himself go cold. "How bad?" he said in a voice that seemed to come from far away.

"Not as bad as it could have been. The General will tell you more. "

"What about Annie and the girls? Has someone told Jack?"

"I don't know anything more, sir. I'm sorry. The General will answer your questions."

When they got to the fort, the first person Nick saw was an older man dressed in camouflage gear, smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper as he lounged on a bench by the gate. There was a rifle leaning up against the wall behind him. Nick looked again, and his jaw dropped. The man had a blood type symbol inked on his forehead.

-OOO-


	17. Chapter 17

"'Ten-HUTT!"

The big Minuteman sergeant's bellow cut through the babble of voices. All of the forty or so people in the Fort Carlisle officer's mess fell silent, including the group of Minutemen near the door, who snapped to attention. All eyes swivelled to the front of the room as Nate Howard, General of the Minutemen, strode in. He was carrying Rejean's satchel under his arm.

"At ease, everyone," he said, sitting down at a table that had been placed there for him. "Please find a seat. We've got a lot to get through and not much time to do it."

There was a general scraping of chairs as people got themselves settled. The dining tables had been pushed back to form a rough arc along three walls, the open ends pointing to the front of the room. Nick took a place near the back, close to the doors leading to the kitchens. His eyes kept drifting to the little knot of men and women in combat gear finding seats near the front, opposite the door the General had come in. They all looked to be in their forties and fifties, some showing signs of recent combat, and every one of them with a blood type freshly inked on their foreheads. Jack was with them. Nick shook his head. _Gunners_ _._ Like some nightmare out of the past come to life. The other thing was, he knew most of them, including Bill Duchesne, who ran a contracting business in Diamond City and was the odds-on favourite to be elected Mayor next year, and who turned out to be the senior officer among the surviving Gunners.

"It was Annie did it," Jack had told him when he arrived. "She went to Bill, told him what was going on. They had a council of war, decided maybe it was time to get the band back together."

"What about her and the girls?" Nick asked. "Are they safe?"

"A bit traumatized, but they got through it. Tandy and old Doc Crocker set up a dressing station under the Left Field stands and they spent the night helping sort out casualties."

"How bad was it?"

"Bad enough. But it could have been worse. You'll hear more about it at the meeting."

"And Lily?"

A dark shadow passed over Jack's face. "She's in the infirmary here. They brought the doctor up from town to check her out, and the General was in talking to her. I don't know how much he'll get from her. She still won't talk to me."

Nick laid a hand on the other man's arm. "It'll be alright. You'll see. Just give her time."

"I hope you're right."

Besides the dozen Gunners, there were twenty senior Minutemen in the room and a handful of warlords from the local clans, each with a pair of guards. These last were standing grouped loosely together in a back corner opposite Nick, watching the room and each other warily.

There was a whisper of movement beside him and Maude sat down in the chair next to his. She had changed into a long dress with pleated skirts, belted at the waist with the bodice scooped to reveal her deep cleavage. When she crossed her legs, her skirts rode up to reveal high-heeled black ankle-boots and black stockings. A wide, floppy hat with a large, curling feather stuck into it completed the outfit. Her presence created a slight stir in the room. A number of the older Minutemen smiled widely at her, and a couple pointed. She nodded gravely at them, then turned to Nick.

"What are you doing here?" he said quietly, tilting his head close to hers.

"You didn't think I was going to let you have all the fun, did you?" She grinned at him. "Besides, when the shooting starts you and your bum leg might need someone on your side."

"There isn't going to be any shooting. The General has guaranteed safe conduct to everyone."

"Huh." Maude looked sidelong at the warlords. "You tell that to those clanners. Lots of bad blood between them and the Minutemen. Somebody farts at the wrong time, guns are gonna come out. Watch and see."

Nick shook his head. "You don't know the General." But he noted the dark looks being exchanged between the Minutemen and the revealed Gunners, and the warlords at the back of the room, and he wondered.

The General banged his gavel. "Order, please, " he called. "If we're all settled, I'd like to get down to business."

"The first order of which is, who put you in charge?" one of the warlords called. She was a tall, tattooed, woman with dirty blonde hair done in dreadlocks. A long knife hung from her belt and a battered but serviceable-looking pipe rifle was slung over her shoulder.

An angry murmur went through the assembled Minutemen. "He's in charge because he's the General," a young captain answered.

"He ain't my General," one of the other warlords said. The others nodded in agreement and the murmuring increased in volume. The warlords glanced at each other and edged closer together.

The officer who'd spoken before growled loudly and started to stand. "You weren't talking so big after the raiders handed your asses to you," he said, his hand resting on the butt of his pistol. Nick slumped low in his seat and looked over at Maude who mouthed an "I told you so" at him.

"That's enough of that," the General said loudly, his voice cutting through the hubbub. He banged his gavel hard on the tabletop, then pointed it at the officer who'd spoken. "You, sir, are out of line. Sit down." Reluctantly, the captain complied, growling to himself and turning around to stare angrily at the little group of warlords.

The General pointed at the first warlord. "Tatiana, who was it gave you sanctuary after the raiders hit your village? Patched you up, fed you, made sure you got supplies and equipment?"

"The Minutemen," she answered. "So what? Just because we're thankful, doesn't mean we're going to crawl after you kissing your ass every time you open your mouth."

A buzz of anger went around the room and the General cracked his gavel on the table again. "You're right, it doesn't. But it still means you owe me. And you, Bob Cantlen," he said, pointing his gavel at another warlord. "I see you brought your sons with you. I hear they were with a group that got jumped coming through Lowell last month. Who pulled their nuts out of the fire?"

"Well there, General," the man said, chewing on a wad of tobacco stuck in his cheek, "I'll allow as how the rangers helped out. That's a fact. But my boys were holding their own just fine before they got there. Coulda gone either way." He leaned over and spat a stream of tobacco juice into a can he was holding.

The General laughed. "Don't try and shit me, Bob; I'm too old for it. You'd have buried them both if my rangers hadn't showed up when they did. Instead, your sons are alive and two of my people are dead. So you owe me. Big time." His gaze raked across the group of warlords. "All of you. You're all here because when the chips were down, you came for help and the Minutemen freely gave it. So now you owe a debt. To me, to the Minutemen, and to the Commonwealth. And I'm calling it in."

"You took our guns, damn you," the largest of the warlords barked. He was a huge, barrel-chested man wearing crossed bandoliers, with two pistols on his hips and a pair of short-barrelled rifles scabbarded across his back."

"Really? You don't seem to be lacking in that department." The General twisted his lips amusedly and a little titter went through the room.

"You know what I mean," the man answered angrily. "You took away our weapons and left us defenceless. It is an insult. It cannot be borne."

The gavel cracked again. "Of course I took your guns. Do I look stupid to you? The clans hate each other so much you can barely stand to be in same room with each other. If we hadn't disarmed you, there'd be open war in the camps. "

The man spat. "Don't talk to me about the camps. We hate the camps." The others nodded in agreement.

"Good. How badly do you hate them? Do you want out of them? Do you want your guns back? Do you want to go home?"

"Yes, of course," they said.

"Then stop wasting time. There is work to do and we can't do it without you. "

The General continued: "Last night, raiders hit Diamond City. Nearly a hundred men. That's not an invasion; it's a raid in force. But even so, it was nearly enough to take the city."

"How did they get through the gates?" someone asked.

"They had people inside, disguised as traders. Enough to overpower the guards and open up the city for the ones waiting outside. It was a good plan. Diamond City was caught completely unawares. Except for them"—he nodded at the little group of Gunners—"and for that we are in their debt."

There were growls from the Minutemen and the dark looks got darker. "But they're _Gunners,"_ one shouted, leaping to his feet and pointing. His face was red and twisted with anger. "I lost a brother at Quincy. How am I supposed to forgive that?" Other voices rose up in agreement and several more Minutemen stood up ,shouting. Nick hunched down lower and slipped his hand inside his coat to rest on the butt of his revolver.

The General banged his gavel. "Sit down," he commanded, and when the noise did not abate, he banged it again. "Sit down," he repeated. He looked at his officers. "I understand your pain. We all lost people at Quincy. But if it wasn't for them, Diamond City would at this moment be in enemy hands and the gates closed against us. And we've already seen what these people are capable of."

He pushed back his chair and stood up, and his gaze swept the room, stopping to rest in turn on this person and that as he spoke, his eyes holding theirs and his words drilling into them.

"You Minutemen," he said. "How many of you had parents and grandparents who wore raider tattoos? Or fought for the Brotherhood of Steel? How many came here as refugees when the Institute was destroyed? How many rode with the Triggermen gangs, or the Forged? Or the Rust Devils? And yet, here we all are, together in the same room wearing the same badge. Nor are these men and women"—he pointed at the Gunner contingent—"strangers to us. Who here lives in a house Bill Duchesne built? Or buys their shoes from Amy Novak? Our children and their children go to school together. They're our friends and neighbours. They're Commonwealth, too.

"And you"—he nodded at the warlords –"you are not Commonwealth. But while we've had our differences, we have never been at war, and in this moment, a common cause binds us. A common enemy. The only way we can defeat it is if we stand together, united. That's the challenge that lies before us: that we defend ourselves together against our common foe, and that we all come out safely on the other side. What say you? Are you ready for it?"

There was silence. Then one of the warlords began to clap slowly. Another joined in, then the Gunners, and then the Minutemen, until finally applause filled the room. The General waited until it began to subside, then motioned for silence.

"Major, tell us about Diamond City."

Duschene stood. "Not much to tell, General," he said. "Jack's wife, Annie"—he motioned at Jack – "came to us asking for help to find Jack and her little girl. Stuff she told us tallied with intel we've been getting from our people up north. We talked it over, decided if there was ever a time the Commonwealth needed us, this was probably it."

He looked at the group of Minutemen on the other side of the room. "We were enemies once," he said to them, "but that was a long time ago. The Commonwealth has been our home for twenty years. So we sent the word out and people started coming in. The plan was to sneak out in the middle of the night. I think some of us had an idea maybe we could do this without blowing our cover completely. Instead, we ran into the raiders just as they were coming in." His lips twitched into a little grin. "I think they were hoping to take the city on the quiet. Didn't quite turn out that way.

"Look," he continued, "I don't want to make out like me and my people were the white knights riding in to save the day. You want heroes, talk to the night crew at the city gates. Except you can't, because they're all dead. So are the cops who were on duty that night. Lots of regular folks heard the noise and came out fighting. Lots of them paid the price for it, too. We all did. But we won."

He sat down. A woman near the back raised her hand. "I don't get it," she said. "What was it they expected to gain? And who the hell are they?"

The General spoke. "The answer to your first question is, we don't know yet. It could have been supposed to be a quick in-and-out. We know what they're capable of in a short time; we saw it at Sawyer's Crossing. If that happened in a place like Diamond City, it could spark a panic and that might put pressure on us to pull our forces back from the frontier. That would give them a free hand out here." He spread his hands. "It's not a great answer, but it's the only one we have right now."

"But as for your second question," he continued, "that I can tell you. They come from what was once the Canadian province of Quebec, where a number of different factions have united under the leadership of a group called the Purlaine, whose guiding principle is a belief in the superiority of the white race over all others."

Someone laughed. "The superiority of the what?"

The General looked pained. "I know it sounds a little extreme. But it wouldn't be the first time someone started a war of conquest under the banner of racial purity. In this case, we believe the invasion is the first step in a holy war whose goal is to eventually establish a 'white homeland' here on the eastern seaboard."

"What about ghouls?" Maude shouted.

"I don't imaging they would be allowed either."

"Then fuck 'em."

"That is the plan, yes."

"It sounds like a load of bunk to me," the warlord named Tatiana called. "How do we know any of this? Bastards fight to the last man. Or suicide. We've never taken one alive."

"Neither has anyone else. They have a knack for avoiding capture, as you say. Even the ones who hit Diamond City chose to die rather than surrender. Nonetheless, we know quite a bit about them now, thanks in a large part to the courage and daring of a young Diamond City girl who was held prisoner by them for several days before escaping."

He tapped the bag on the table before him. "Between what she was able to tell me this morning, and the information in this satchel which was taken from her captors, we know who they are, and we know where to find them."

He looked back at the room. "It is critical that the things I am telling you remain a secret for as long as possible. The enemy is among us. They infiltrated Diamond City and Sawyer's Crossing. Spies have been moving surreptitiously through the countryside, learning about us and mapping out invasion routes. They may well be here in Carlisle – they definitely planted a mole in the very heart of our defenses, among the Minutemen itself."

"Impossible!"

"Unfortunately not. You know our code. When you join the Minutemen, the slate is wiped clean. But this makes us vulnerable now. Reluctantly, I have ordered background checks to be done on every recruit who signed up in the last six months. It's regrettable, but it's necessary. We can't have spies in our ranks."

"What about the traders?" one of the Minutemen asked. "Can we still trust them?"

"I've been asking myself the same question," the General answered. "For those of you who haven't heard, the traders who opened the gates in Diamond City weren't strangers. Some of them had been coming to DC for years. They were people the guards there knew by name. It's not a secret that we all use the traders as our eyes and ears. Some of the information we get from them is even worth what we pay for it. But this is frighteningly different."

"Lock 'em up, then," a large, be-whiskered man with colonel's stars on this shoulders shouted. "Shut them down until we've got this thing settled. We got lucky at DC. We can't risk that happening again. "

A murmur of agreement went through the room. The General shook his head.

"I disagree," he said. "Listen, if it were possible I'd order every trader within a hundred miles interned for the duration. But it's not. They're our lifeblood. Without them, the economy of the Commonwealth would collapse."

"Then we'll take them over. Put our own people in place and run the caravans ourselves."

The murmuring got louder. Here and there, heads nodded in agreement. But the General shook his head again.

"We could try that," he said. "It might even work, although we'd only have one chance to get it right, and if we failed, we'd risk taking the Commonwealth down with us. But even if we succeeded, it would take resources we don't have and people we can't spare, at a time when our most important job is defeating the enemy and protecting our homes. Yes, it's going to be tougher doing that if we're always looking over our shoulders. But that's our job. We're not a government, thank god. We're soldiers, and we're up against an enemy that is prepared, and organized and ruthless, and that will destroy us if we don't act.

"So now what?"

"We take the attack to them. Now. Not next week or next month or next year, but now. Soon enough that we can hit them before they even know we're coming."

He smiled and licked his lips. "Someone wants to pick a fight with us, we're going to goddamned well oblige them. Except we're going to do it on our terms, not theirs. Because we know something they don't know we know. We know where they are."

He snapped his fingers and someone brought in a large map and rolled it out on the floor where everyone could see. It showed most of the north half of the Commonwealth extending west past the Connecticut River and north into New Hampshire and up into the Green Mountains. Lines had been marked on it corresponding to the invasion routes mapped out by Rejean and his scouts, and the location of the Purlaine bunker at Fort Apache was indicated with a large swastika.

Seeing it, Maude frowned and sat up suddenly. "Valentine!" she hissed, tugging at his sleeve. "What is that place?"

"What?"

"The mark on the map. What is it?"

"It's a fortified bunker of some sort, hidden in the mountains."

"Yes, I know that. But what is it?"

"What do you mean? It's the enemy's forward base. If we can pry them out of there, there's a good chance we can blunt this attack right now."

"Yeah? Well good luck. It was built to take a direct hit. A hundred feet down with hermetically sealed blast doors… You wanna crack that baby open, you're going to need a mighty big can opener."

Nick looked at her. "How do you know this?"

"Because I've been there. That's where we were going that night. After Swanzey. "

-OOO-


	18. Chapter 18

"it was your girlfriend led us there," Maude said.

"Meredith?"

"Was that her name? I never learned it."

Everyone else had left and it was just her and Nick alone in the mess hall. Through the open windows he could hear the sound of orders being barked on the parade square outside the fort, while from the kitchen doors behind them drifted the clink and clatter of dishes being washed and the sounds of the cooks starting to prepare for the evening meal. All around was the noise and hubbub of a busy army post except here. Here it was just they two and the memory of a world more than two centuries in the past.

"It was an old government bunker," she continued, "a hundred feet down inside a mountain. A whole underground city with room for a couple thousand people and enough supplies to last for years."

"So it was a vault, you mean."

"No it wasn't. Or at least it wasn't Vault Tec who built it. Look, who's telling this story?"

"You are."

"That's right. So keep your trap shut." She patted his hand and leered at him. "We finally get a little alone time and you want to waste it talking, that's your business. The least you could do is keep from interrupting."

He rolled his eyes good-humouredly and she continued. "It wasn't Vault Tec, those bastards. It was older than that. Cold War, all the way back to the twentieth century. Same plan as in 2077, though: dig a big hole, climb down inside and wait it out. Except the idea then was to move the whole government down there."

"Huh," Nick grunted. "That's news to me. We all knew the government had shelters so they could keep things running when the war came. But I never heard of one in the Green Mountains."

"That's because it was a secret. That's what 'secret' means. Are you going to let me finish this or not?"

"Sorry. Carry on."

"Thanks. Besides, I think they must have changed their minds about that part, because they never did use it. She was stationed there just before the war, she said. Some kind of hush-hush research project. She never did say what for, not that I ever heard. Biological warfare, probably. Wasn't that what everyone was doing back then? She was a biologist, anyway, so it had to be biological something. They'd all bugged out when things went bad, everyone trying to get back to their homes. She came to Swanzey trying to find you. But it was a madhouse by then. Everything falling apart. Like everywhere, I guess."

A strange sensation overtook him, like hearing the colour green or touching a rainbow, and the world began to fade around him. He shook his head to clear it.

Maude looked at him strangely. "You okay?"

"I … I think so." He shook his head again. "I wish I could remember this."

"Me, too. She was some firecracker of a girl. Tiny little pixie of a thing, all blonde hair and freckles. Looked about fifteen, but she could swear in six languages and when she cracked the whip, people did what they were told. By the time we got there, she was busy piling the whole damned town into buses. She's the only reason anyone got out of Swanzey alive. Her and you."

He felt the sensation again, and then a smell like rosewater and suddenly he was somewhere else.

-OOO-

" _Son, I need you to step out of the car, nice and slow. No quick moves, now. My friend here is easily riled, and you wouldn't like her when she's angry." The bearded army captain motioned with his gun at the giant sentry bot blocking the entrance to the old covered bridge, missile launchers aimed steadily at the car. On the seat beside Nick, Maude's face was fixed in a rictus of fear and she clutched the baby tightly._

" _Sounds good, captain," he said evenly through the open window. "I'm Nick Valentine – BATFL, out of Boston. The girl's a civilian. We're supposed to meet someone here."_

" _That's fine," the captain said. "But I still need you to get out of the car. Just open the door and step out, hands in the air. Open and empty." He nodded to indicate the sentry bot. "They come up any other way and Betty here will incinerate the car. I'm not joking and there are no second chances. Are we clear?"_

" _Loud and clear." Nick pulled the door handle then raised his hands, empty and open, as requested. He pushed the door open with his knee. The captain moved back while he stepped out. "I've got ID in my inside pocket," he added. "My service revolver is there too." He tilted his head to indicate it. "You mind if I bring it out?"_

" _Nope. You just stay right as you are." He looked in the car. "You too, miss. Hands where I can see them." He jerked his head at the man behind him. "Jackson – come make sure Mr. Valentine is who he says he is, then check on his lady friend."_

" _That won't be necessary, Captain," a familiar voice said. A woman stepped out from the bridge and stood beside the sentry bot. "Hello, Nick," she said, smiling. She nodded towards Maude and the baby. "You've been busy since I saw you last."_

 _Nick grinned. "I can explain."_

" _I'll bet you can."_

-OOO-

"Jesus, Nick, are your batteries low? What's going on?"

He shook his head. "Forget it. I'm fine. This vault – bunker, I mean – did we make it?"

"There were raiders closing in. Local reservists gone rogue, mostly, plus some of the local "good-ol'-boy" militia types. You stayed behind to buy us time, you and some others." She stopped and looked at him. "Nick, I never saw you again."

So there it was. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

"I wanted to stay with you," she was saying from somewhere far away, "but the buses were waiting and you said … you said not to be a damned fool and to take the baby and get in line with the others. You said you'd be right behind us. You said you'd come for us."

"I would have. If I could have. I always keep a promise."

"I know that. That's why I know you didn't make it. Nick, are you okay?"

Was he okay? It was a strange question. He paused, waiting for the now-expected inrush of memory that seemed to be materializing at ever more frequent intervals. But it didn't come. Finally he said: "It feels a little unreal, that's all. I always wondered. I guess now I know."

She was silent for a moment, then she said softly: "I waited as long as I could, almost to the last bus. And then after we got to the bunker, I still waited. We didn't have nobody else, Leo and me. And none of them nice, white, New England folk really gave a shit about a little Alabama girl and her mixed-race baby. But you never came."

They sat together for a while without speaking. Then he said: "What about Meredith?"

Maude looked into the distance. "She waited until the very last bus," she said. "Making sure everyone else got on. We got ambushed a few miles up the road. Her bus got hit; I saw it explode. It was the only one we lost. Five hundred people you saved that day, you and her. We never even knew your names."

Nick closed his eyes, remembering the smell of wood smoke and the sound of rain through an open window. Then he said: "I wish you would have told me all this a long time ago."

"How could I? I didn't even know you existed until I saw that silly play they made about you, and then I remembered, about you going into the Institute for tests. You talked about it in the car that night. Something about it must have really bothered you. I went down to DC and tracked you down. I sat beside you at some bar. You were talking to the bartender and I knew it was you the minute I heard your voice. I don't expect you remember."

He shook his head. "Sorry, no."

"That's fine. I was going to say something to you but I got cold feet, I guess. I was pretty sure you wouldn't remember me anyway, and even if you did, I didn't know if you'd care. It was a long time ago and I didn't look like this, then. So I just finished my drink and left."

"Well, I'm sorry you didn't introduce yourself."

"Me, too." She paused. "Nick there's something else you should know."

"What?"

"That bunker was also a missile silo. When we got there, we found nukes. Big ones, aimed all along the eastern seaboard. 'Operation Scorched Earth' they called it, for use in case of a successful invasion. The Mayor ordered the control rooms sealed off and everything powered down, but I don't doubt the missiles are still there."

Nick stood up. "I think we need to go find the General."

-OOO-

"Christ, I wish I had some power armour and a couple sentry bots." Nate Howard, general of the Minutemen, threw his pen down on the desk in disgust.

"Hell, I wish I had a bottle of good scotch and a trampoline," Nick answered, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on the desk. He clasped his hands behind his head and looked over to where Maude was leafing through an old magazine. "What about you, Maude? What do you wish for?"

"My nose," she said absently, closing the magazine and putting it down beside her. "When you go ghoul, your nose is the first thing you lose. I envy people with noses."

Nate looked up from the papers in front of him. "You two aren't much help. Trying to wrangle this mob into an army is like juggling baby mirelurks. The Minutemen hate the Gunners, the Gunners think the Minutemen are a bunch of amateurs, and the clans hate each other and everybody else. Plus they'll steal anything that isn't nailed down. I've had the Carlisle sheriff up here twice this morning complaining about the clanners, and they aren't even all here yet. God help us when we give them back their guns." He picked up a piece of paper, squinted at it and put it back down again. "Then there's supplies and transport, weapons and ammunition…" He shook his head. "Napoleon marched on Moscow with 680,000 men. I've got less than 3,000 and it's like pulling deathclaw fangs to get anything to work."

Nick grunted. "Napoleon might have left with 680,000, but he only got home with 90,000. I like our odds better."

Nate pointed at the stack of papers and notebooks from Rejean's satchel. "We wouldn't have any odds if it weren't for Lily and Maude," he said.

"That's true, too." Nick let his chair back down and stood up, carefully putting his weight down on his newly-repaired leg, courtesy of one of the Minutemen gunsmiths. He could feel the new welds straining, and the joint was stiff, but it was holding. Most of the circuits below the joint had blown, and there weren't the parts or the expertise available to fix them. But his repair systems had shunted all the lower leg functions into the few that were still working, feeding them through in rotation. It worked, but it was taking some getting used to. Sometimes he got an echo back, making it feel like there was an extra leg down there. But at least he could walk.

It had been three days since the war council in the officer's mess, and for all of Nate's frustration, the Commonwealth forces and their allies were almost finished mustering. The Minuteman garrisons at Fort Carlisle and at its main headquarters at the Castle – the bulk of what passed for a standing army in the Commonwealth – had been nearly emptied, and reserve militiamen had been coming in from the settlements since the day before. The last of the remaining Gunners had finally come in – more than two hundred of them in total – and the clans were still arriving. Keeping order had been difficult, but true to their promise, the leaders of all the factions were working together to keep old hatreds buried and new ones from arising.

It didn't help that panicked civilian authorities across the Commonwealth were demanding the Minutemen's protection and squawking angrily when it wasn't forthcoming. But Goodneighbour had sent troops to Diamond City, and between them and the hastily formed citizen militias, the Commonwealth was as protected as it could be.

The more they learned from Rejean's notebooks, the more apparent it became that the bunker was indeed going to be, as Maude had warned, a tough nut to crack. There had been a ski resort on the mountain there since the 1920s, and it continued to be one after the government built a nuclear bunker underneath it thirty years later. A tourist town had grown up below the ski runs, replete with alpine-themed hotels, swanky, timber-framed bars and upscale shops selling overpriced gear. The original stone-and-timber chalet remained, built into the mountainside slightly farther up. Now it masked the main entrance to the bunker.

Rejean's map and notebooks were lovingly detailed, with sketch plans showing the layout of the chalet and location of the main bunker entrance and notes on everything from the location of lookout stations and sentry posts to the numbers of men on duty and their armaments and defences. "Who the hell was this guy spying for, anyway?" Nate had asked at one point, flipping through one of the notebooks. "If you were going to attack the place, this is exactly the kind of information you'd want to have."

"Maybe he was," Nick shrugged. "We know from Lily there wasn't much love lost between the Gaspésie and the other factions. Or maybe he just had a good eye for defensive planning. Either way, if they manage to get those blast doors closed, I don't see us getting in there on our own. I suppose they'd have to run out of food sooner or later."

"That could take months," the General pointed out. "Years, maybe, if they're well-stocked, and meanwhile we're slowly starving to death outside. I doubt we have that kind of time, anyway. We'll start losing the clans inside of a week, two weeks tops, and the way we've stripped the Commonwealth, it's pretty vulnerable. I don't trust the clans on the best of days, and I trust them even less with that kind of temptation dangling in front of them. Plus we'd be sitting ducks camped out there if a relief force marched down from Quebec. Or went around us and hit the Commonwealth."

But it was Maude who saved the day. "We don't need the front door," she said, leaning over the desk beside Nick and giving the General a good look at her ample cleavage in the process. "There's a side door, just around here somewhere." She pointed to a spot up on the north face of the mountain. "There's a little stream comes down the mountain, with a waterfall and a cave behind it. The door's in there. Or it used to be, anyway."

Nick and Nate looked at each other, then back at Maude. "You're just a bundle of surprises, aren't you?" the General said admiringly. "Can you find it again?"

"I haven't had call to go back there in a long time, but I remember the way. I doubt you can get the whole army up there, though. It was a tricky climb, even back then. But a little party could do it; come sneak in the back way, catch them by surprise."

"Huh." Nick looked at where she was pointing. "The map doesn't even show it. I wonder if that means they don't know about it. Is that possible?"

She nodded. "It's tucked away from the main bunker. We only found it by accident ourselves. I think they figured it was a shelter inside a shelter, for the top brass if there was a mutiny or if the Reds ever got in. They had paranoia down to an art, those old Cold Warriors. And that's another thing. There's a secondary control centre for the missiles there. If it's still working, we should be able to tell if they're armed, and to shut them down."

"How do we open the door?" Nick said.

She grinned at him. "I remember the codes. And it's a good thing, too. You could pack that whole cave with dynamite and not blow through it. Vault Tec could have learned a thing or two from the guys who built this place."

-OOO-

For it to have any chance, the attack on Fort Apache had to be made with complete surprise, and that meant the Army of the Commonwealth had to get there before the news it was coming. So the General ordered Carlisle sealed tight. Anyone could enter, but no one was to leave, particularly the half dozen or so caravans that were there at the time. They'd been rounded up, their stock impounded and the caravanners put under guard.

"It's only for a few days," Nate said to Nick when he came to his office to protest. "Just until we have this thing wrapped up. A couple of weeks at most."

"How can you promise that? We don't have a clue what we're getting into. Even if we can take Apache without a siege, we'll still be at war. This thing could drag out for years. What happened to 'we're soldiers, not government'?"

Nate sighed. "That was different. This is just the caravans here at Carlisle. And it's temporary. I swear."

"Sure, I know. 'For the duration of the emergency'. I've heard it before. You of all people should remember how that worked out."

"Of course I remember. Nick, what would you have me do? This is an emergency. Someone has to make decisions and we're the closest thing the Commonwealth has to a common institution. If we don't take charge, who will?"

Nick slammed his hand on the table. "For God's sake, Nate, listen to yourself. Or better yet, listen to your own officers. You heard them talk at the meeting. Some of those clowns would jump at the chance to take power. For the good of the Commonwealth, of course," he added sarcastically.

"That's crazy talk."

"Is it? It wouldn't be first time."

"Maybe not, but people nowadays wouldn't put up with it. We'd have a revolution on our hands inside of ten seconds."

Nick grunted. "Sure we would. A mob against an organized force – you know how that ends. And then what? Purges and gulags? Show trials and 're-education camps'? Maybe we hang a few of the leaders, just to make examples of them? It wouldn't be the first time for that, either."

"Nick, it wouldn't happen here. It couldn't happen here. For one thing, you and I won't let it happen."

Nick shook his head. "Never underestimate the power of human folly, Nate. Or the folly of human power. It's a hard thing to put away, once you've had a taste of it. I've been talking to Maude. Some of the things her girls have heard might surprise you."

-OOO-

Jack adjusted his pack on his back, tugging on the straps to tighten it before leaning down to pick up his rifle and sling it over his shoulder. With the muster finally complete, the Fort Carlisle parade ground was a confusion of noise and movement as the Army of the Commonwealth prepared to move out.

There was a movement behind him and he turned to see Lily dressed in travelling gear, Ellie's pistol riding on her hip and a rifle over her shoulder.

"Hi, Dad," she said, moving to stand in front of him. "How are you?"

"Lily," he said, "thank God you're here. I didn't know if I'd have a chance to say good-bye. I've arranged an escort to take you home. Did they find you?"

She moistened her lips with her tongue before answering. "Yes, they did. I told them I wasn't going."

"What? Why? I've already sent a message to your mother saying you were on your way. She'll be expecting you."

"Yes, I know. I sent her a letter, too. I'm not going home."

He sighed. "Look, I know we haven't really had a chance to talk about anything. I'm sorry about that. But there'll be time later, I promise. Right now, I need you to go find that escort. I had to pull some serious strings to get permission for you to leave. If you don't go now, you could be stuck here for weeks. And if it goes bad for us out there, it won't be safe here for anyone. I need you back at home."

But Lily was shaking her head. "Daddy, I'm not going home," she repeated. "I joined up with a militia out of Quincy this morning. I'm going to Apache."

He looked at her in disbelief. "You did what?"

"I signed on with one of the reserves. I was going to enlist with the Minutemen, but then I would have had to stay here with the recruits. The Quincy militia was shorthanded so they took me on."

"Lily, are you sure about this?" he asked, choosing his words carefully. "You've been through an awful lot in the last little while. Did you tell the doctor? I think she's still pretty worried about you."

"I don't need a doctor, Dad, I'm fine. But I need to do this."

"Why? Haven't you done enough? You know that none of this would be possible without you, right?" He gestured at the army gathering itself together around them. "Let the rest of us take it on from here."

But she was shaking her head. "You don't understand, and it's okay. I don't know if you'll ever understand. But there's a part of me that's still out there and I …. I need to go find it."

"Maybe I would understand better if you'd talk to me," he said, and there was an undertone of frustration in his voice. "I'm your father, remember? I've been there for every scrape and bruise and heartache you've ever had. I've seen a lot of the shit people are capable of, too. There's nothing you can't tell me, Lily."

From across the parade square came the sound of someone calling her name. She looked over. "Dad, I have to go. I've already signed on. It's a done deal. I'll see you on the march."

Jack slid out of his pack and dropped it on the ground. "Listen to me," he said. "First thing is, I'm going over there and get you un-signed-on. Next, we're going to find that escort I put so much trouble into arranging and you, young lady are going home."

She stood where she was. "Daddy, don't you dare. I'm an adult now. I'm old enough to do what I want."

"Do what you want?" He laughed, an angry, explosive, bark. "Lily, you've been doing what you wanted since you were five years old. You want to be a grown up? Being a grown-up means taking responsibility. It means taking the hard road instead of the easy road. It means understanding that sometimes, what you want to do and what you have to do are two different things."

"That's what I am trying to do."

Something snapped inside him and he swore angrily, his face darkening. "No, it's not. You're doing the same thing you always do. If it's not Lily's way, it's the highway, and to hell with anyone who might get hurt in the process. Me, your mother, your sisters… For once in your life, how about doing what you're goddamned well told?"

She faced him, her hands on her hips. "I'm eighteen now, Dad. You can't tell me what to do."

"I don't care how old you are," he exploded. "I'm your father, and I'm telling you this is no place for a young girl, especially one in an emotionally vulnerable state. You have no clue what's involved in this. You go off with some half-trained, trigger-happy, Minuteman militia all that's going to happen is you'll get yourself killed and maybe other people, too. You don't know the first thing about being a soldier and that makes you dangerous, to you and everyone around you."

"I know enough to know I need to do my part."

"Then you can do your part in Diamond City! They need all the guns they can get there. Lily, for once in your life listen to reason. What if something went wrong? What if you're killed? Or captured? Do you know what these people do to women?"

He stopped abruptly, a look of horror on his face at the realization of what he had just said. Her jaw dropped and she stared at him, her face white.

"Lily… I didn't mean to say that," he said. "I didn't … but… you won't talk about it. I'm your father. How can I help you if you won't tell me what's wrong?"

She shook her head at him in disbelief, tears starting in her eyes. "Have you ever thought that maybe the reason I haven't told you is because you are my father? That maybe I don't want my father to know what I had to do to stay alive? The things I had to let happen to me? Do you think that I might like to have just one part of my life where I can go back and things will be normal again? Did you ever think of it that way?"

"Lily; I'm sorry," he said, begging. "I'm sorry. Please, you have to believe me." He reached for her but she slapped his hand away.

Attracted by the noise, a small crowd of the curious had gathered and now Lily turned to stare wide-eyed at the circle of strangers around her.

"Anyone else?" she said, raising her voice so everyone could hear her. "I was captured by the Purlaine and held for several days. It's a great story. My father wants to hear all about it. Well, I'm ready to talk. Anyone else want to get their jollies? Gather 'round, folks, and I'll tell you all about it."

"Lily, stop it."

" _Stop telling me what to do!"_

"What the hell is going on here?" a voice cried and there was a sudden, violent jostling as the small, wide, form of the Carlisle sheriff bulled its way through the crowd. Once through, she turned around to glare back at the people gathered there.

"Don't you folks have work to do? Get a move on. Get out and leave this girl alone. She's put up with enough already." She turned on Jack. "And you. Did I just hear you call yourself her father? Why don't you try acting that way?"

"This is a private conversation, Sheriff. Mind your own damned business."

"Private? They can hear you halfway to Diamond City. Meanwhile, her unit is mustering and they're calling for her, so get your ass out of the way or Gunner or not, I'll put you in a cell." The sheriff looked back at the crowd, only reluctantly starting to dissipate. "That goes for the rest of you, too. Go on with you."

"Jack, come on." It was Nick, coming up from behind and speaking urgently in his ear. "They're waiting for you. It's time to go." He laid a hand on his shoulder, turning him partly around.

"Nick, I won't leave my daughter. This is ridiculous. She's just a child."

Nick shook his head. "She's not, and if you keep carrying on like this, you'll lose her forever. Is that what you want?"

"Of course not." He spread his hands, clenching and unclenching them repeatedly. Finally he looked down, shaking his head. "I give up," he said. He looked up. "Lily, I'll see you on the march. I'm with the scouting parties, but maybe we'll have a chance to talk later."

"Sure, Dad," she said woodenly. "I'll talk to you later." She turned to go. "'Bye, Uncle Nick."

"See you, kid. I'll come over and ride with you a while if I can figure out how to make my stupid horse do what it's told."

"Look, Jack, he said, after she was gone, "the problem is that she is your daughter. You're a pair of bulls in the same china shop is what you are. You always have been. Do you remember the first day of school?"

Jack swore. "How could I forget? Those damned shoes. She flat-out refused to wear them. We fought for an hour over it."

"Uh huh. And what did you do?"

"I gave up. Like I always do. Told her to please herself. This isn't the same thing."

"Isn't it? What did she do?"

"Went to school barefoot. So they sent her back home to get shoes on, just like I told her they would. And all the kids laughed at her. She was mortified, came home bawling. I wanted to go back there and slap the daylights out the whole bunch of the little bastards. That smug teacher, too."

"But she put her shoes on and went right back, didn't she?"

"Sure. But Nick, this is the whole of what I'm saying. There's always two ways to do anything when it comes to her: the easy way and the Lily way, and she picks the Lily way every single time."

"I kinda think there's a lesson in there, don't you?"

"What? That after all these years my daughter might have learned to listen to me once in a while?"

"No, that your daughter needs to learn things for herself."

"This isn't a bunch of kids laughing at her, Nick. She could die out there."

He shrugged. "So could all of us. Look, I'd rather she was home, too. For one thing, Ellie made me promise to take care of you. All of you. She'd have my head on a plate if she was here. So we'll just have to make sure we all get home safe. You, me and her. Okay?"

Jack shook his head in resignation. "Not much else I can do, I suppose." He stuck out his hand. "Thanks, Nick. You've been a good friend to us all these years."

Nick grinned. "That's what favourite uncles do. Now let's go. I have to get on that damned horse and I can't face it alone."

The sheriff had been hanging around waiting for a chance to speak. "Valentine," she finally said, "I need to talk to you about something."

"Sure." Nick motioned to Jack. "You go on ahead I'll catch up."

"No, it concerns him, too."

"What's up?"

The sheriff looked around, then spoke quietly. "Something you ought to know – I went poking around that old service station after you left. Place has been closed up since Old Man Johnston died, but I found where a board was pried loose and put back. Someone killed a couple girls in there and shoved them in an old freezer. Raped and strangled, Doc says."

"Jesus. When did it happen?"

"A couple months ago. They were dancing up at Frolick's for a while this winter, just didn't show up one night."

"And no one reported them missing?"

She shrugged. "I guess no one knew they was. This is an army town. They drifted in one night looking to make a few caps; folks figured they just drifted out again the same way. You know how it is."

"You got anyone you like for it?"

She nodded. "Pretty sure. The last anyone remembers either of them, they'd been getting pretty chummy with that boy, Garrick. You got any idea where I can find him?"

"Yeah, but it won't help you. Someone dumped him in a shallow grave a couple days west of here. You sure it was him?"

She nodded. "There was other evidence there that put him at the scene. Wasn't much chance he was going to escape a noose, I don't expect." She pursed her lips. "It'd be better if justice had been seen to be done; might remind some folks hereabouts that them girls were people just like the rest of us. On the other hand, it saves me the price of a rope." She looked at Jack. "If your girl was mixed up with him, you might want to tell her she got off lucky. And if she's why he was killed, you might tell her she did the world a favour. He was a dirty piece of work."

Jack nodded. "I'll do that. Thanks."

The sheriff continued. "Look, Valentine; you're the detective. After things settle down I'd like your help tracking down the girls' families. I got a couple leads, but it's a bit out of my area of expertise."

"I will. After we get back, I promise."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

Nick looked over the sheriff's shoulder. The General's party was saddled up and waiting, including Maude, who was holding his horse. She beckoned to him and he waved back.

"Sheriff, we have to go."

"Good luck," she said, shaking their hands. "Sorry I was rude to you back there," she added to Jack.

"No, you were right." He shook her hand, grinning ruefully. "I seem to say that a lot. Probably that's what they'll carve on my gravestone."

"Yours and everyone else's, likely," she answered. "Now go blow a couple holes in them bastards for me."

"We will."

-OOO-


	19. Chapter 19

"Landslide, maybe twenty, thirty, years ago to judge by the new growth. Completely buried. Take weeks to dig it out, even if we knew exactly where to look." Nick grimaced in pain as the technician gingerly manipulated his knee joint. "Christ, be careful there," he snapped.

"Sorry, pal. You better close your eyes or look away. This thing gets pretty bright. Same for the rest of you folks." He flipped his mask down over his eyes and fired up the welding torch, narrowing the flame to a fine point as he began feeding flux into the re-opened crack in Nick's knee. "I told you to baby this thing," he added, his voice muffled by the mask. "Jumping around on mountains, that's the opposite of babying."

"Sorry. I'll try to do better next time."

"There better not be a next time. This joint goes again, it's done. Now keep quiet and quit moving. This is the delicate part."

Nick sighed and held up his glass. Maude poured him another generous shot of whiskey, which he downed thankfully. The expedition had been a total failure. Wherever the back door was, it lay buried under tons of rock and earth. If that hadn't been enough, he'd slipped traversing a steep slope, bouncing and rolling a considerable distance before regaining control, in the process cracking the weld in his bad leg.

He could feel the whiskey hitting him, a sure sign his power converters were slipping out of alignment again. He didn't care. The warm buzz took some of the sting away, not just from his leg but from his pride. He'd been so sure the back door was going to be the answer. "I guess now we know why it wasn't on the damned map," he muttered, putting the now-empty glass down and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "No one's getting in or out that way."

"I'm sorry, Nick," Maude said.

"Not your fault," he answered. "How could you know? It was a perfect plan, except for that one tiny flaw."

It was a somber crowd that waited in the General's tent for the welder to finish his patch job. Four days of hard marching had brought the Grand Army of the Commonwealth to the foot of the mountain where the bunker was, swinging wide and crossing the Connecticut River at Brattleboro, to come at it from the north, out of sight of the main gates. The scouts had ranged far out on either side and ahead of the army, sweeping its path for hostiles and spies. But they'd met none, and a party of rangers sent to scout the ski resort reported no signs of unusual activity. Unlikely as it seemed, they had arrived undetected, and now the army was bivouacked in a deep hollow on the mountain's northern skirts, waiting for the General and his staff to decide what to do next.

There was a commotion outside and a ranger stuck his head in through the tent-flap. "Begging your pardon, General," he said, "but a scouting party just brought in a group of hostiles. Six of 'em."

"Alive?"

"Alive."

-OOO-

Nick sat alone in the tent. He picked up the bottle on the little table beside him then put it down again. The welder was gone, with stern orders for him not to move until the weld had had a chance to set. That was okay; he didn't much feel like moving anyway. He looked at the bottle again. What the hell, he thought, and poured himself a generous two fingers, then added a third.

He took a slug and felt the whiskey burning inside him. He missed Ellie. There weren't many days he didn't think the Goodneighbour waif he'd taken in after her drug-addled prostitute of a mother had died. It had taken weeks of painstaking effort to coax the little girl out from inside the hard shell she'd built around herself, but the rewards had been worth it. All those years Ellie had been, not his secretary, not even his right arm, but the one thing that made certain he stayed human.

He noticed with surprise that his glass was empty, and poured another.

His dreams – visions, memories, hallucinations; whatever they were – had been increasing in frequency and intensity since they left Fort Carlisle. Swanzey had been the worst. Riding across the bridge into town had felt like being in two places at once, one of them real and the other a living nightmare from which he could not awaken.

-OOO-

" _Where are we going?" he said as she opened the car door and got in, motioning for Maude to slide over._

" _Up there," she pointed out the window across the river to the road rising in narrow switchbacks up the hill above the town. She leaned out the window. "Thank you, Captain!" she called. "I'll send someone down to relieve you as soon as I can."_

" _No problem," he called, waving back. "Us and Betty are fine down here for now."_

 _Nick wheeled the car over the covered bridge, built in 1832, the sign said. He took the right branch on the other side and followed the rain-slicked road as it wound back and forth up toward the gates of the old hospital._

" _Why are we going here?" he said, cautiously navigating the last switchback. "I thought we were going to Larry's cabin."_

" _Change of plans," Meredith said. She glanced sideways at Maude then looked back at Nick. "Looks like you've changed a few plans too, since we talked last."_

" _It's not like that. I met them on the road. They were in trouble."_

 _There were a pair of armed men standing outside the gates. Meredith waved at them and they motioned the car through. Inside was a wide, walled courtyard starkly lit by harsh, actinic yard lights strung on poles. On the far side was a graceful, three-storey building with balconies on every level overlooking the courtyard below. There were people in the courtyard, milling about or just sitting in ones and twos and little family groups. They had the shattered look of refugees as they huddled next to their meagre belongings, people caught up in a horror not of their own making. On the far side of the courtyard the hospital building straddled a deep tunnel, on the other side of which he could dimly make out parked buses and a line of people waiting to board._

" _Who are all these people?" he said._

" _I met them on the road," she dead-panned. "They were in trouble."_

-OOO-

Nick shook himself out of the memory. They weren't just coming more frequently, they were becoming more connected. Before, they'd been snippets and flashes of vision. Now they were all stringing together, like a story someone was telling him but with himself as the main character. Remembering Maude's words, he was dreading the ending.

At her urging, he'd even talked to the Carlisle doctor about it, but she hadn't known much. "I'm just an old country doctor," she said. "Babies and broken bones are about my limit. If you were human, I'd say you've taken one knock on the head too many. Concussions are cumulative, and they get easier every time. But you're not human and so I don't know. Sorry."

Nick wished Amari were still alive. She would have known what to do. But she was long gone and so he poured himself another drink instead. Too damned many deaths. Too damned many years. Too damned much pain. He felt his eyes closing, the glass slipping from his fingers.

" _Nick, wake up."_

"What?" he looked around but the tent was empty. Great. Now he was hearing things. Then a hand shook him gently.

" _Nick, wake up. I need you. I think there's something happening down below."_

 _He blinked, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He must have dozed off. Meredith was leaning in through the car window, shaking him by the shoulder._

" _What's going on?" he said, coming alert._

" _One of the men thinks he saw lights coming up the road down by the bridge."_

" _Okay, I'm coming." He threw off the blanket and kicked open the car door. "Did you send someone down to find out?"_

" _I did."_

" _Okay." He looked around. "Dammit, Meredith, we should just take the car and go. This place is a death trap."_

" _And just leave these people?"_

" _Why not? They have a mayor – I saw him making a speech not twenty minutes ago. Let him take charge."_

" _I've met him. He couldn't lead a sandwich out of a lunch bag. Besides, this bunker I'm taking us to is the safest place for us. There's food and water, light and power; enough to last for years."_

" _Then why don't we just go there?"_

" _Because these people need us. What the hell is wrong with you? The Nick Valentine I fell in love with wasn't afraid to help people."_

 _Nick started to answer, then stopped. He cocked his head. "What did you just say?"_

" _I said I thought you weren't afraid to help people."_

" _No, before that."_

" _Oh." She thought about it for a minute. "I guess I said I love you."_

" _I don't think we've ever said that before."_

" _I suppose we haven't." She looked at him, waiting, then finally said, "Look, I don't mean to make a big thing about anything, okay? Maybe now's not the right time to have this conversation."_

" _No, wait. It's just – I loved Jenny, and then she died. And then you came along, and the world was right again. Then I got your letter, saying you were going away – "_

" _Nick, I'm sorry about that. Let me explain – "_

 _He shook his head. "No, no… I understand you don't always get to choose; I'm in the same boat. It's the world we live in. But understanding it and liking it aren't the same thing, and I just decided I didn't want to be hurt again. Then I met the kid, there" –he jerked his head at where Maude was sitting on the hood of the car playing with the baby, the two of them laughing as he kicked his chubby legs in the air– "and I realized if they could have love with all the things they'd gone through, then so could I."_

" _So you're saying?"_

" _I love you, too."_

 _She took his hands in hers. "You should kiss me."_

 _He did, and for what seemed to be a very long time the noise and confusion around them disappeared. Finally he pulled away. "Look, kid … if you say this bunker is the right choice, then I'm with you."_

 _She kissed the palm of his hand. "Good. It's protected. It's safe. And it's empty. Once we get there we can seal it up tight and ride this thing out."_

" _Then what about you and Maude take the car and go. I'll take care of things here then follow you afterwards."_

" _You're kidding, right? I'm not leaving you, Nick, no matter what happens. That's flat."_

 _He held her face and looked at her steadily. "If it comes down to it, Meredith, you will, and that's an order. You think these people need us? Well, they need you more than they need me. And I need to know you're safe."_

 _Her eyes flashed and she opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to say was lost in the rippling explosion that tore through the night and the cascading flashes of light that lit up the sky, throwing the wall around the compound into sharp relief._

 _Meredith screamed and Nick leapt to his feet. "What was that?" she said, grabbing him by the arm._

" _The sentry bot, firing its missile turrets." The sound of heavy weapons fire erupted from below, and there was shouting and screams of panic from the people camped in the hospital courtyard. Nick flung open the car door and grabbed a rifle from off the seat. "We're under attack," he shouted, grabbing up an ammo box. "Get these people up and moving, keep them from panicking. Anyone you see looks like they can use a gun, get them up on the wall."_

 _She took his hand. "Nick, be careful."_

" _I will. Save a seat on the bus for me. At the back with the rest of the rowdies."_

" _I will." She squeezed his hand one more time, then she was gone._

-OOO-

"You don't have to do this," Jack said.

"Yes I do. I'm the only one here who can talk to them."

"There's others here who speak French. I'm sure they'll manage."

"That's not what I mean." Lily remembered a full moon and the sound of wolves howling from beyond the firelight, and she thought of a little carved bird, carefully stowed in the pack in her tent. "I understand them, I think. Just a little. But maybe enough."

"What's to understand?" Jack said. "These are the same bunch of assholes who held you prisoner. That's all I need to know."

She smiled sadly at him. "Thanks, Dad. But this is one of those times when you have to think with your head, not your heart. They're Gaspésie, not Purlaine. The two aren't friends. They don't even like each other. What if we could use that to our advantage?"

"How so?"

"Let me talk to them."

There were six of them, all sharing a strong family resemblance. A ranger scouting party had taken them by surprise as they slept and brought them in unharmed, congratulating themselves at finally having taken prisoners. But none bore the swastika mark of the Purlaine, and all now wore looks of sullen resignation; the expressions of men who fully expected to die.

"You are Gaspésie," Lily said without preamble, speaking the same patois she had learned during her captivity. She had a good ear, Mme. Curie always said, and she tried to mimic the accents of Rejean and the others. The effort was not lost on the captives.

"So are you, by the sounds of it," one of them said. "Or perhaps your parents came south."

She shook her head. "No. But I knew Rejean Landry, from Rimouski."

They perked up at this. "We are from Ile-aux-Basques," the same one said. "But I have met him. He is my father's great-uncle by marriage, through his first wife." He looked at her shrewdly. "You say 'knew'. Does that mean he is dead?"

She nodded. "A Purlaine named Maxime killed him."

The man spat, and there were dark looks from the others. "The damned Purlaine and their stupid war," he said. "They will be our undoing."

"Maxime is also dead," Lily said. "Rejean slew him, before he died."

"You were there?"

She nodded. "It was I who drew the knife from his heart and set him free. He died honourably and well."

"Ah." The man nodded with understanding. "You were his woman."

"I was not," Lily snapped, her face colouring. "This is not the Gaspé. We do things differently here. But… he was my friend, I think."

"I see." The man thought for a moment. "I think you are here for more than to simply pass the time about old friends. What is it that you want from us?"

"I want to end this war."

"So? We are dead men. We cannot help you. They hang their prisoners here in the south so that they strangle and kick like dogs. Not even a bullet so that we may die like men."

"Who told you that?" she said in surprise.

He shrugged. "Everyone knows this. But we will not cry for mercy from cowards who do not even know how to properly kill a man. We are Gaspésie. So I ask again, what do you want?"

"I want your help. You are Gaspésie. You hate the Purlaine. Don't try to deny it; I rode many days with Rejean and his men. I know your hearts in this matter."

"It is true. But so what? They pay in cash, and the fishing has been poor at Ile-aux-Basques this year. My family is starving. So we take their pennies and do their bidding. Quebec is rich and the Purlaine the richest of all. In the Gaspé, we have little more than our pride."

"The Commonwealth is rich. Very rich. We could help each other."

He shook his head. "You did not learn much from Rejean if you think we will betray the Purlaine for money. We have taken their coin. We will not dishonour our sworn word."

"No, of course not," she said, thinking quickly. "I know that and I would not dishonour you by asking, even if I thought you would. But does service to one master preclude service to another? It is a small thing I wish." She paused. "Two small things. And I will pay well."

He mulled it over. "What are they?"

"That you take me, as your captive, into Fort Apache and swear that you and your men will not divulge our conversation to any other, or the presence of our force here."

He raised his eyebrows. "You think to spy on them? But I doubt you would learn much in the prison compound. And" —here he looked at her sharply— "you would not enjoy being a captive of the Purlaine. They take the prettiest ones first."

She shrugged. "And yet, this is what I want. And one other thing."

"Technically, that is three things you ask, then, not two. But what is it?"

"I will give you money to pay Rejean's debt to the trader, Franćois Bayard, and find a kind man to take his widow and children. Else Bayard will sell them into slavery."

"Will he? Bayard is a pig. 'Frank Baird', he calls himself now, from his big house in Maine, and pretends to be a rich English. But we know better. Yes, I will gladly do that for you and for Rejean. And your other request, too. But all my men must be freed, with guarantees we will not be molested."

"Agreed. But then you must not stay at Apache, or you will be stuck there, and Bayard will soon hear of Rejean's death if he hasn't already."

"Very well. But if this war goes on there may be a shortage of men in the Gaspé, kind or otherwise, for me to give them to."

Lily waved at the camp around them. "With luck, it will end here," she said.

"Even so. But perhaps I will drop them off at your doorstep instead."

"Just see that they are safe, that is all I ask."

"Very well," he agreed. "It is good of you to do right by Rejean's family like this. And to see the Purlaine hoodwinked will bring joy to our hearts. So I swear, as do my men. We will do your bidding in this matter and we will keep your secrets, as you have asked. But no further. We will not risk helping you once you are inside."

"I understand that."

He looked at her closely. "You are a very brave girl. What is your name?"

"Lily."

"Lily, I wish you would not do this. You speak boldly, but I know fear when I see it. And I know the Purlaine. You should listen to your fear. Go home instead. Let the men fight the wars and then be there to welcome them when it is over. That is the way it should be."

"That is not how we do it in the Commonwealth."

"Then the Commonwealth is a barbarous place." He shook his head. "Women have their own power over men. Perhaps you will attract the attention of one who is able to protect you from the others. I hope so, for otherwise you will not leave Apache alive."

He pointed with his chin at the Minutemen guards, who had listened uncomprehendingly to the conversation. "Do you speak with their voice too? Or must you now sell our agreement to someone else?"

"The latter. But you leave that to me."

-OOO-

"Absolutely not. Absolutely. Not." Jack slammed his fist down on the table in the General's tent where the senior officers were gathered to hear Lily's plan. "This is madness. I completely forbid it." He looked at Nick. "Tell them. You can't let her just walk in there. God knows what they'll do to her. Nick, I can't stop you from whatever crazy stunt you want to pull, but this is my daughter we're talking about here. I have a duty to protect her. What makes you think this cockamamie idea will even work, anyway?"

"I don't disagree, Jack," Nick said. "There's a lot that can go wrong, and even if everything goes right, the risk is huge. But we've been up and down this thing and I don't see any other way. Our best chance was the back door. Without it, this might be our only chance."

Lily's plan was simple, and fraught with danger. There was no way the army could force an entrance into Apache once the doors were sealed. Nor was a siege even remotely possible. The General's predictions about the fragility of his alliance were already coming true. But where an army couldn't force a way in, a single, audacious individual might, if he simply walked up and knocked, and if he had a good enough reason. And according to Lily's plan, that man was Nick Valentine, and the reason was Lily herself.

"Listen," she said. "He's a detective, chasing a runaway. That's what detectives do. He's only one man. What kind of threat could he possibly pose to them? If we want them to open the door, this is the way."

"But why would they care?" the General said. "Why wouldn't they just gun him down?"

"Money," Nick said. The whiskey had flushed through his system quickly as it always did, and he had shaken off his dark mood from before. Now he was nodding his head as he considered the idea. "Ransom money. A rich family… the mayor's only daughter. A couple saddlebags full of caps with the promise of more to follow and a bonus if she's unharmed. These Purlaine are the top dogs up there, right? There isn't anyone in the world greedier for money than someone who already has lots of it. I know it sounds crazy, but I've done this kind of thing before. We wave enough cash in their faces, there's a good possibility they'll agree to dance."

"Then what?"

Major Duchesne, the leader of the Gunners, spoke up. "You leave that to us. We'll slip a strike team in behind you. If you get that door open, we can hold it long enough for everyone else to come up."

The General scratched at the three days growth of beard on his chin. "It's still deadly dangerous," he said. "Once the shooting starts, you'll all be vulnerable. As will the prisoners, including Lily."

"It's a calculated risk," one of the Minutemen officers said. "But war is all about risk. What other choice do we have?"

"How about the choice where we stick a wig on you, and you go instead?" Jack growled.

"Knock it off, Jack," Major Duschesne said. "Look, I think this is thin at best, but we've got maybe two days before the clanners start pumping bullets into each other. Either we do something now or we turn around and go home. But why do we need Lily? And the Gaspé scouts? We're letting a lot ride on their supposed dislike for the Purlaine and their sense of honour. There's captives in the bunker already. Why can't Nick be looking for one of them?"

"Because we don't know who they are," Nick said. "Or even if they're still alive. I hate to say it, but Lily going in there gives us the ring of truth we need to get us in that door."

"I might be able to organize some resistance, too," Lily said. "They have to be desperate in there."

"Be damned careful who you confide in. Captives have been known to side with their captors. You pick the wrong one, it'll blow the whole thing wide open."

"I know that. At the least, I can stir up some trouble when the fighting starts and keep them jumping."

"Let me do it." Winnie Nguyen, the ranger corporal, stepped forward. "Sorry, hon," she added to Lily, "but my odds of surviving this are a lot better than yours."

Lily shook her head. "The army needs you," she said. "It doesn't need me."

"Lily, I need you!" Jack said in tones of anguish.

"That doesn't matter, Dad. Being a grown-up means recognizing the difference between what you want to do and what you have to do. I think someone told me that not so long ago. And I understand their language, remember? When things start popping, that might make the difference between success and failure."

"Much as I hate this plan, I'm inclined to agree with Lily," the General said. "Winnie, you are never going to look like anything other than a soldier. I don't think you'll fool anyone for a minute. And I need you right where you are, anyway. But maybe there's someone from one of the settlement militias who would volunteer."

"No," Lily said. She addressed the General directly. "I can't put any more people at risk. I know this is a long shot, but I'm the best person for it. Please."

The wrangling went on for a time after that, but it was clear the deal was done. Afterwards, Jack came up to his daughter and took her hands in his.

"Lily, you don't have to do this," he said. "If you change your mind, everyone will understand."

"I know that, Daddy. But if I don't do this, then war will come to Diamond City. I don't want that on my conscience."

"No one would blame you for that."

"I would blame me." She took a deep breath and squeezed her father's hands tightly. "Daddy, if you say no, I won't do it. But there's times when one person can make the difference. I think this is one of those times. I feel like Grandma would agree."

He looked steadily at her. She stared back, unblinking. Finally he said, "Promise me you'll be careful. And smart."

"I will."

"And Lily?"

"Yes?"

"I'm terribly proud of you. Your mother and I both."

"I know, Daddy. Thank you. That means a lot."

She laid her head on his chest and he held her tightly against him as he stroked her hair. "Be brave," he said. "Whatever happens, I'll come find you. That's a promise."

-OOO-

 _The lights had been turned down and the music was just beginning, and couples were starting to drift onto the dance floor. He felt hot and uncomfortable in his unaccustomed suit and tie, sitting near the back of the school gym. He was surprised to find himself there, since he hadn't planned to come. In fact, he had no memory of coming, or of anything else, he realized. It was as if the universe had just now been created solely for his benefit. Strange._

 _The dance floor was full, the dancing couples breaking up and re-forming in some complicated pattern. But now he could dimly hear sounds of tumult drifting in through the windows that had been opened to relieve the built-up heat of the day. It was getting closer, and he could make out individual shouts, the sounds of running feet and the bark of gunfire. No one else seemed to notice anything wrong, except that someone turned the music up a little._

 _Then from the front of the room a voice began to speak, loud and sonorous, like a teacher lecturing. "The cycle of life can be broken down into various interconnected components, existing both on the macro and micro scale and frequently crossing the boundaries between them. Although a number of conceptual models have been proposed to account for discrepancies in the way individuals perceive the universe around them, ultimately it is all about memory. And memory is a personal construct. We are, literally, what we remember, and in each iteration of ourselves, we create and recreate this memory of who we are."_

 _Nick shook his head. It was gobbledy-gook. But the dancers had stopped to listen and now they were all nodding in understanding. Some were applauding. Close to him a girl caught his eye and winked. She was tiny, with blonde hair and a dusting of freckles across her nose and she looked tantalizingly familiar. As she should, he thought. These were his classmates. They'd been together since the beginning. But strangely, he couldn't place her. Another girl, dark-haired with skin as pale and smooth as alabaster, smiled shyly at him and his heart leapt even as a wave of grief poured over him._

 _The noise coming through the window was getting louder. But inside the room, it was quiet. Everyone was looking at him. But why?_

 _The dark-haired girl pointed over his shoulder. "Ask him," she said. "He knows."_

" _Ask who?" he said into the silence._

" _Me," a voice said from the shadows behind him, and the hair on the back of his neck rose. For he recognized the voice. It was his own._

 _-OOO-_

Nick awoke with a start and looked wildly around, the dream dissolving into tatters as consciousness returned to him. It had been a true dream, not one of the strange episodes of returning memory that he'd been experiencing lately. He knew Ellie immediately, of course, and the blonde with the freckles he now recognized as Meredith. But the sense of familiarity he'd felt looking across the dance floor remained. There had been no strangers in that room, he realized.

It was the deepest part of the night. Above him the stars shone brightly through a gap in the trees. The space Maude had occupied next to his in the little lean-to shelter was empty and her blanket gone. He rolled over, feeling the stiffness in his joints. What had Nate said when he'd come to visit that day, so long ago now, it seemed? "I've been sleeping on the ground a lot. It's not as much fun as I remember."

Through the trees he could see the flicker of light from a tiny, sheltered fire. A figure sat silhouetted before it. He got to his feet and went over. It was Maude, wrapped in her blanket and staring into the fire's depths. Wordlessly, he sat down beside her.

"Blanket?" she said, holding it open. He nodded and she arranged it over his shoulders then leaned up against him.

"Nice night," he said, for lack of anything better.

"You were dreaming," she answered drily. "You kicked me. Twice."

"Sorry."

"It's okay." They watched the small flames dance for a while. Finally she said: "Are you nervous about tomorrow?"

"A little. You?"

"I'm not the one knocking on the front door."

"Maybe so, but none of it will matter if those missiles are armed and you don't get us there in time. Besides, if things go wrong, I have a Plan B."

"What's that?"

"A micro-nuke."

She stared at him. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. They used to be pretty common, back in the day. I've been holding onto this one for a special occasion."

"And it works?"

He nodded. "I tickled the circuits this afternoon just to make sure. It's not enough to get the door open, but it might be enough to keep it open."

"And maybe take you with it."

He nodded again. "It's possible. But it may not even come to that. It's amazing the kind of edge one of these things gives you in a negotiation."

He smiled inwardly, hearing the echo of his own voice in the remark, from another desperate adventure, long ago. It had been Ellie, that time, taken prisoner by an Institute courser gone rogue. He remembered the relief in her voice when he'd opened the door to the cell where she lay strapped to the courser's torture rack. Breckenridge, it had called itself. What had it said to him, there at the end?

" _You have more heart than anyone I've ever met, Valentine. Loyal. Devoted. Ethical. You love and are loved. You prove your humanity with every action you take. And yet they sneer at you and call you names. You're just a machine to them."_

Nick looked down at the woman sitting beside him and thought about other people he'd known in the long years since he'd woken up trapped in the body of a machine. Breckenridge had been wrong, he realized. He was not, had never been, simply a machine to the people he'd met. It was nice to know.

"You're a long ways away," Maude said.

"Just thinking," he answered. "What happened to you afterwards, Maude? What happened to the baby? And how did you get to be—" he paused.

She laughed. "To be a ghoul, you mean? You can say it. It's been a long time. I ain't embarrassed about it."

"But I thought you made it safely to the bunker."

"We did. It was everything Meredith had promised, and more. It was the perfect refuge."

She poked at the fire with a stick she had in her hand and her face got serious. "But there were problems. Not their fault, really. I know what I said earlier about white New England folk, but they were fine people in their own way. An older couple even took me in. Their grown-up daughter had been on the last bus and I guess they thought I could be a substitute. Truth to tell, Nick, I had my own issues. Leo settled me down some, but I'd always been a hell raiser and it were an easy habit to fall back into."

Her eyes got a faraway look. "We were in there two years, Leo and me. The Davison's died; she had heart problems and one day her ticker just stopped. Mr. D, he didn't last long after that. I came home one day and found him with an empty pill bottle and a note saying he was sorry. I don't think he was talking to me. I started drinking seriously after that, plus doing chems and carrying on. But I should have listened to you, that night in the car."

"What did I say?"

"I was complaining about how much work Leo was. You said 'Oh, he's easy now. You wait until he starts walking around by himself.'"

She looked at him and her eyes were bleak. "One day I lost him. He was always going places, poking into stuff. Brightest little thing you ever met. I'd jack myself full of whatever I could find and let him drag me around by the hand while I looked at the pretty colours.

"That place was big; lots of it was places people didn't go anymore. That day we found the back door. Dust everywhere; it didn't look like anyone had been there in years. But there was a control panel with lots of shiny buttons and a big one that said "OPEN". So I pressed it and sure enough it opened. I could see the cave beyond and a bit of light coming in from the end. Leo wanted to go look, of course, but it scared the hell outta me, so I closed it right away. I had a bottle with me, just to help keep the edge on. So I had a belt, then a couple more. I don't remember much after that, except when I finally came down, the door was open and he was gone. He'd climbed up and pressed the button, just like he'd seen me do. I could see his tracks in the dust going out. But they didn't come back in again.

"We never found him. We were out there until past dark then all the next day. But there wasn't a trace of him. It was December. He just had a t-shirt on and some pyjama pants. Not even shoes. He never had a chance."

"You can't blame yourself, Maude," Nick said quietly. "You were barely more than a kid yourself."

She went on as if she hadn't heard him. "A long time later I found a little pile of bones down at the bottom of a coyote hole, not far from the door. There was some of his t-shirt left, even had a bit of colour still in it. White and blue sailor stripes. I filled in the hole to bury him. By then, I was like this."

Nick opened his mouth, but she brushed him off. "They blamed me," she said. "The people in the bunker, they blamed me for his death. And they were right. So after they called off the search, I just walked away. A couple days later I came across a pond full of scummy water and radioactive fish. It was so 'hot' I could feel it from fifty feet away. I wanted to lie back and let it burn away my guilt. Instead, it made me like this."

Her face lost expression and she stared into the fire. "It's getting better," she said tonelessly. "Sometimes, now, I can go a whole day without thinking about him." Then the tears came, and this time she let Nick hold her while she cried.

-OOO-

The day was dark with cloud, the on-again off-again rain hanging in wet curtains in the distance and thunder rumbling and muttering across the sky. Standing in front of the gates to the chalet, Nick waited with his escort. They were half naked, with tattoos splashed across their arms and chests, and they watched him warily while they waited for an answer.

It had been a bit touch-and-go when he'd first approached the sentry post at the outskirts of the ruined tourist town. But the white flag got their attention and the promise of cash kept it. And fear. Nick had been dealing with this kind his entire life: ruthless and dangerous; motivated by greed but controlled by fear of those higher up. They were all the same, from the juvie street gangs to the Mafioso crime families all the way up to these wingnut neo-Nazis. All he had to do was keep them moving him up the chain. "Take me to your leader," he'd said, raising his hands. They hadn't gotten the joke.

The rain started up again, dripping off his hat and running down inside his collar. Finally the double doors of the chalet swung wide. Rifle barrels pointed at him through the opening, the rifles themselves cradled in the arms of grim, hard-eyed men, tattooed and shirtless with the swastika symbol carved deep into their foreheads and repeated in their tattoos. They were a cut above the low-class thugs he'd surprised in the sentry box. But they were still prey. He hadn't met the real predators yet.

"You have money," one of them barked in a thick accent. "You want to ransom a girl." He had Lily's picture in his hand that Nick had given to the sentries when he made his pitch, and now he pointed at it. "Fine. Give me the money, I give you the girl."

"Bring her out first," Nick said. "I want to see she's alive. Then we'll talk about money."

The man laughed at him. "Perhaps I will kill you now and take your money."

Nick smiled. "Do I look stupid to you? All I'm carrying is a down payment. You want to see the real cash, you have to either bring me the girl, or bring me to someone who can. Of course you can just kill me, but when the others find out, I suppose they'll wonder why you didn't share. Or how much they could have made if the bruno they stuck out here watching the door hadn't been so greedy."

"Piss on you," the man said. "You're not even human. We have heard of your kind; devils in human form. I should kill you and do the world a favour."

"Look, pal, I've got 500 caps in this bag and ten times that much hidden in the forest, and I don't feel like jawing with some patsy. Either take me to someone who can actually produce the girl or get out of my way so I can find them myself."

Nick could see the wheels turning in his head. Finally he snapped his fingers at his escort and said something in French, no doubt along the lines of "Bring him inside. If he makes a wrong move, kill him." In any case, one of them gestured unmistakably with his rifle and Nick stepped through the door. It closed behind him in the faces of the group from the sentry post, and the spokesman turned on his heel and stalked off.

Nick leaned against a corner and looked around. He was in a wide, shadowy hall, once elegant with timbered walls and a high, chandeliered ceiling, but now fallen to ruin. There had been large windows all across the main floor originally, but they were long since boarded up and so the only light was from small windows higher up and a hole where the roof had caved in. Across from him was a huge stone fireplace with wide corridors on either side leading back into the rest of the building. Above them, twin staircases curved up to a second floor gallery running the length of the room and from which more corridors led away. When the roof had caved in it had taken part of the gallery and one of the staircases with it, and now daylight and rain poured in there, sending a river of dirty water along the floor.

The fact the place was standing at all spoke volumes about the skill of the centuries-dead builders. But he didn't doubt that one good kick would take the whole thing down.

From Rejean's drawings, he knew the doors across from him led through several open salons and then into a grand theatre at the very back of the building where the entrance to the bunker was. The weakness in the plan – one of the many weaknesses, he reflected – was exactly how the strike team was going to infiltrate the theatre without raising the alarm. Rejean's drawings only showed so much, and while they would allow Major Duchesne and his group to avoid or overpower the sentry posts outside, they didn't include anything so useful as, say, a handy map of conveniently-located underground service tunnels. Fortunately, except for the guards the chalet seemed mostly deserted. Nick guessed this was to avoid detection. Still, any gunfire was going to alert everyone in earshot. He needed to get the bunker doors open before that happened.

He thought about Lily. She'd left with her Gaspésie captors just before sunset and Jack had had a bad night of it until the doctor made him take a sedative. Nick wondered if she was still alive, and he wondered if she'd been betrayed or tortured, and if even now he and the others were walking into a trap. He felt the weight of the little micronuke hidden inside his coat and considered the details of Plan B.

Time passed. The guards fidgeted. Nick ignored them. Finally he heard footsteps returning.

"God smiles on you," the man said. "You get to live."

"Money talks," Nick said, patting his satchel. "You taking me there, or are you just going to point me in a direction?"

The man grunted at him, then waved at his men. One of them prodded Nick roughly with his rifle barrel and the group move on, skirting the giant fireplace and around to one of the main hallways. There were skeletal remains in the fireplace, Nick saw, charred and blackened and hanging by manacles, tendrils of burnt flesh still clinging to the bones. He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

Open salons, where generations of skiers had eaten and drank and told each other stories, gave off on either side of the wide, central hallway. Second floor galleries like those in the main hall overhung the corridor and the whole place was dark and deserted, illuminated only by shafts of light filtering down from holes in the arched ceiling above. It reminded Nick of pictures he'd seen of ancient cathedrals.

At the very end of the hall stood two sets of double doors leading, Nick knew, into the theatre. Guards stood there and they opened the doors as the little group approached.

"Nice place," Nick grunted as they passed through a short hallway and out into the main theatre.

The room was huge, with row upon row of seats descending to the main stage below, while above and on either side were balconies and box seats. Once it had been covered by a high, vaulted roof, but most of it had fallen in. The wreckage had been cleared away but the theatre now stood open to the sky, something, Nick reflected, it might have been nice if Rejean's notes had mentioned.

The theatre was a ruin. Wind and weather had destroyed the seat cushions and the thick, soft carpeting, and water had rotted the wall timbers and the decorative plastering. The stage had also collapsed, revealing the dressing rooms and rehearsal spaces below and taking with it the false walls that had disguised the massive bunker doors. A rough bridge of recent construction crossed the space to a platform in front of the closed doors, and on it stood a man.

He was huge, shaven-headed and thick-necked, nearly the size of a super mutant, with ropes of muscle cording his bare chest and arms. Every inch of his exposed skin was tattooed, even his eyelids, and there were thick bands of scar tissue splashed across his face and body. A pair of homemade pistols swung from his hips and a massive, spiked club was slung over his shoulder.

"Nick Valentine, the famous detective," he bellowed in accented English as Nick approached down the ramp, followed by his guards. "Risking his life to retrieve a runaway girl, they tell me. It's like a story in a book."

Nick stopped at the end of the wooden bridge. "You've heard of me," he said.

"Who has not? Even in Montreal your exploits are legion. The man of steel with the heart of gold, whose eyes blaze like fire and who can lift a thousand pounds with just one hand."

"Yes, well… that was a long time ago," Nick drawled. "Still, I'm flattered to hear my fame has spread so far."

"And a good thing for you, or even now you would be chained to the fireplace. But welcome to Fort Apache."

"Thanks. I hope you'll forgive me, but I don't think I've ever heard of you."

"And why should you? I am nobody. The lowliest of the low; the King's Fool, fit only to bow and scrape by the door for the amusement of those who would enter."

"Somehow, I doubt that," Nick said drily. "But have it your way. If you can't help me, maybe you'd better direct me to someone who can."

The tattooed giant threw back his head and laughed. "No, Nick Valentine, there is no other. If I cannot help you then you are beyond help, and then death will surely find you."

Nick shrugged. "It finds us all, sooner or later."

"So she does, doesn't she? Then before she comes for us, let us make merry. What will you have of me? A song? A joke? A tune, scraped from the fiddle? Some feat of legerdemain to delight the eye?"

"You know what I'm here for."

"Do I?" He gestured with his right hand, making a fanning motion, and Nick's photograph of Lily suddenly appeared between his fingers. "Ho ho!" he said, looking at it. "It is magic. I turn my hand, and she appears. And such a beautiful child. I'm sure her family is eager to welcome her back to their loving embrace."

"They are. And they're willing to pay for the privilege." Nick made his satchel jingle again.

"I'm sure they would." He made the photograph disappear. "But she has brought such delight to my house. Such a pretty one, and so much _joie de vivre_ , all spit and claws, like a kitten that has not yet been tamed."

"Her family will pay well to get her back. They'll pay even more to get her back unharmed."

"Will they? But what if I say I don't need your money? What if I would rather keep the girl, instead?" He stopped to flex his biceps, glancing at them admiringly. "Do you know," he said distractedly, "I was once small, like you. But one day I found a book, a very old book, and it said, 'do these things, and no one will ever kick sand in your face again'. Has anyone kicked sand in your face, Nick Valentine?"

"I can't say as they have."

"Then you are lucky. It is not a pleasant experience." He put his arms down and looked at Nick. "Some of my men wanted to play with your little girl last night. I was of two minds, because I love them so, but still I did not wish her broken right away, and so I gave her to them, but only just a little bit." He held his fingers close together. "Just a teeny, tiny bit. How she hissed and spat! Like a tigress. But in her eyes I saw such fear. Nick Valentine, it made my heart dance. So I took her away from them and gave them a different girl instead, one not so pretty anymore. But your girl, I think I will keep for myself."

Nick had advanced and now he stood in the middle of the bridge. His guards stayed well back and he could sense their fear. Madness ruled at Fort Apache, he realized, making the kind of negotiation he'd envisaged impossible. He felt the weight of the micronuke beneath his long coat, its bulk disguised by the satchel of money he carried. It had been a calculated risk smuggling it in like that, but it had worked. But the door to the bunker wasn't open yet, and while he might succeed in blowing the madman across from him to Kingdom Come, the riflemen behind him would fill him full of holes a second later, after which he would be dead and the bunker still sealed.

He listened carefully. His ears, far more acute than those of a mere human, could detect nothing. No sounds of the mixed crew of rangers and Gunners moving into position, but also no sounds of alarm from outside. He dialed up his senses a little and let his fight-or-flight reflexes kick in. The world slowed down. He slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the detonator he'd rigged in there.

It was time to go for broke.

"This is all bullshit," he said loudly, stepping forward. "My clients are willing to pay top dollar for the girl. You could buy a dozen feisty virgins for what they're willing to fork over, if that's what you wanted."

"A dozen virgins! Feisty ones! _Incroyable._ But what would I do with them?"

"What the hell do I care? And look here, Fool, or whatever you call yourself, the smart money says you and your boys are looking to move in here permanently. If that happens, could be you could use a friend or two down at City Hall, if you know what I mean." He edged a little closer.

"Oh goody. I've always wanted a friend at City Hall."

Nick was close now, close enough he could feel the man's hot breath on his face. "Good. Then how about you bring the girl to me and we can talk about payment. Or take me to her. I need to know she's safe, otherwise there's no deal. Your word alone won't cut it."

The rain had let up and he could feel the beginnings of warmth on his back as clouds began to open.

"But the virgins, Nick, tell me about the virgins. What will they look like?"

"Sorry, son," Nick said. "You'll have to pick them out yourself." The light around him was strengthening and he could imagine the rift forming in the clouds above, a slash of blue sky peeking through and sunlight edging the clouds with gold. In a moment, he thought, the sun itself would shine through, and suddenly he could hear her whispering in his ear: _"I won't go far. The wind in the leaves. The sunlight on your face… that will be me. Just close your eyes and I'll be there."_

He smiled to himself. Faintly, he could hear the sound of booted feet moving stealthily into position in the galleries high along the walls of the old theatre. Then the giant nodded over Nick's shoulder and the men behind him advanced quickly and pinioned his arms tightly to his sides. But his hand was still in his pocket and his thumb was over the detonator button.

The big man laughed, suddenly, and when he spoke again the madness had left his voice. "What a bunch of weaklings you are, to care so much for the life of one girl. Ransom! Where we come from, we would have spit in your faces and told you to keep her. But not you; you are soft. I think we will like living here." He turned and barked an order in French and the big doors behind him began to roll open.

Nick ignored him. His mind was elsewhere. From somewhere a breeze freshened, swirling around the theatre and lingering briefly on his face like fingers in a gentle caress. Far above, the rift in the clouds opened wide and the first rays of sunlight poured down over the world.

"Ellie," he said, lifting his face toward the warmth. He smiled and closed his eyes.

-OOO-


	20. Epilogue

It felt like he'd been there forever, walking up and down the rows, reading the names and dates on the stones. They were all pre-War, some dating back hundreds of years. One after another, row upon endless row; an archive of human memory chiselled in stone.

"I remember them all," a voice behind him said. Nick straightened up in alarm from the inscription he was trying to puzzle out. He reached for his weapon. But it was only a ragged old man who stood there and he was unarmed.

He'd been tall, once, but now he was thin and stooped. Limbs like wrinkled sticks protruded from a ragged t-shirt and stained blue jean cutoffs, and a beaklike nose jutted from a thick, matted beard and tangled mass of wild, white hair, below eyebrows that looked like a pair of spiky white caterpillars. His skin – what could be seen of it – was lined and tanned. He was incredibly dirty, and what few teeth he had were stained and crooked. There was an old guitar slung over his shoulder, battered and discoloured, but carefully repaired and clearly playable.

The stranger cackled maniacally, but there was no sign of madness in his piercing gaze.

"Come to pay yer respects, have you?" He pointed at the headstone Nick had been looking at. "They were twins, Petro and Aleksander. Fighting over a toy outside, first nice day in spring, ran out in front of a delivery truck. The parents only had but the two, and later in life, after they'd given up trying. 'Mama's little miracles' she called 'em." He nodded at a pair of nearby headstones. "She died that next winter, of a broken heart, likely. He started drinking, drove his car into the river one night. The papers called it an accident, but they was just being polite."

Bemused, Nick followed as the man led the way between the rows. "These two here," he said, pointing, "Adairs. Ted and Judy. Married 75 years, never spent a single night apart that whole time, died on the same day. Lay down for a nap together and never woke up. Granddaughter found them holding hands and smiling at each other. Buried 'em in the same coffin so they wouldn't have to be apart. Not that they cared, I don't imagine. Probably kicking their feet out over a cloud looking down at us right now." He pointed to another one. "This lonely old cuss, here. Rocky Rivera. Picked the wrong liquor store to hold up one winter night. He was a loner. No friends or family anyone knew about. But for years afterwards, someone put a flower on his grave every year on the anniversary of his death."

"You know them well," Nick said.

"Someone has to," the man agreed. He looked closely at Nick, as if really noticing him for the first time. "You don't look human, son. Or maybe you're just having a bad day."

Nick shrugged. "Maybe both."

"Maybe. C'mon, I'll show you around." The man led off and Nick followed, past a neatly tended flowerbed and onto a gravelled lane running between a row of stately elms.

"What's this one here?" Nick pointed at a stone that stood off by itself, under a tall, spreading oak. It was crude and roughly-squared, the letters clearly carved by hand and the grave itself separate from the others in their neat rows.

The old man cackled to himself. "Thought you might spot this one. There's two in there. Died together, buried together."

"Who were they?" Nick said, bending down to trace the words with his finger. He touched the stone and memory tugged at him, like a vision out of the rainswept darkness. Racing through the night, frantic with haste; a terrible fear clawing at him from behind.

A shiver went up his spine as he blinked the vision away.

"They were just passing through," the old man was saying. "Looking for a place to hide. Duty called instead, and they weren'the kind who could say no."

"How did they die?" he said. But he already knew.

 _The attackers had fired the buildings down the hill from the hospital and now flames leapt into the night sky, throwing mad shadows across the walled courtyard where the handful of defenders again, shapes appeared in the gateway. They were firing as they ran. From his spot behind the barricade, Nick aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger. The rifle barked, recoil bucking against his shoulder and a figure leapt into the air then sprawled to the ground, twitching. Beside him, the bearded Army captain fired twice. Another shape spun and fell, then began dragging itself to cover. The officer fired again and the man squealed and lay still. The rest who'd come through dithered, unsure whether to advance or retreat. The men at the barricade fired again and two more went down, while above and behind them more defenders fired from second story windows. Another attacker fell and the rest finally fled back the way they'd come, melting into the shadows on the other side of the wall._

 _The officer grunted in anger. "Bastards were from my unit," he said. He ducked down behind the barricade and turned to look for the middle-aged woman who'd been reloading for them. "I can't see to shoot without my glasses," she had said, "but I can load for you." Now she lay slumped backwards, staring unseeing at the sky. He blinked slowly, then reached out to close her eyes, letting his hand rest for a moment on her cheek. He took the rifle she'd been loading and leaned it against the barricade beside him._

" _They should have rushed us by now," Nick said. "They must have figured out how few we are."_

" _Nobody telling 'em what to do," the officer spat. "Everybody arguing about it and no one willing to stick his neck out. Still, they'll find some courage sooner or later. I don't think we can hold this spot much longer."_

" _Time to move upstairs," Nick said. He looked over his shoulder to the inner courtyard where the last of the buses were still loading. One had its hood up and a small knot of people were clustered there, working frantically to get it started. Nick could see Meredith struggling to keep the lines moving, getting people onto the buses and waving the full ones on their way. As he watched, another one left the parking lot, turning up the winding road that led back into the hills and the fortified bunker that was their only hope of refuge._

" _You go, " the officer said, pointing to the windows above them "It's all civilians up there. If they panic, they'll run."_

" _What about you?"_

 _The other man looked down again at the body at his feet then took his place at the barricade. "Still gonna need someone down here in case a few make it through. You get on up there. I'll cover you."_

" _They're coming!" a woman's voice called from above them, and the night exploded._

Nick opened his eyes, the sound of gunfire still ringing in his years. The old man looked at him.

"You're an old soul, son," he said. "I can see it in your eyes."

"What does that mean?"

"Means you've been around more than once. Been and gone and come back again. Happens to people, they tell me."

Nick laughed. "No disrespect, but the last I heard, only humans have souls. I'm a machine. The only thing human in me are my memories."

"That's not how the Universe works, youngster."

 _The attackers fell back, leaving new dead behind to join the others littering the killing ground below. Nick ducked down below the lip of the balcony, coughing from the smoke pouring out of the building behind him. The roar of the flames was getting louder. He looked around for the others. The older man was sitting with his back to the wall, a neat hole drilled in his forehead and a surprised look on his face. The boy who'd been next to him was on his hands and knees, gagging on blood and crying for his mother as he died. That just left Nick._

 _He threw away his empty rifle, drew his revolver and checked the load. Four shells. He grimaced. Then suddenly, over the noise of the fire, he heard the sound of a diesel engine roaring shakily to life and then the clank and grind of gears as the last bus finally lurched forward, picking up speed as it left the rear parking lot and turned up the winding road that led to safety._

 _Relief washed over him. He grinned mirthlessly. Time to end this._

" _Nick?"_

 _He started in surprise as she stepped out from the smoke and flame._

" _What the hell are you doing here?" he said , drawing her down beside him. " I told you to leave with the bus."_

" _I let it go without me. I think we've established I don't take orders very well."_

 _He closed his eyes. "Babe … There's no cavalry coming. This is where it ends."_

 _She nodded, taking his face in her hands. "I know."_

" _I promised I'd keep you safe," he said._

" _And I promised I wouldn't leave you again."_

 _She kissed him. Below, the attackers were gathering their nerve for another assault. They had learned to fear the gate to the inner courtyard. If they'd been properly led they would simply have stormed it, shrugging off the handful of casualties as the inevitable price of victory. But they were a mob - enraged and fearful; leaderless and indecisive – and so they hung back, or attacked in fits and starts, and dozens of them had died beneath the guns of the desperate few who fought to give the buses time to escape._

 _But it was over now, and the mob, sensing victory, was gathering. The sound of gunshots could be heard, and the dull chunk of bullets striking the wall and spanging off the balcony rail. The building was almost completely engulfed now, and the roar of the flames was deafening. Only the one little patch remained: a tiny island in a sea of fire._

Nick shuddered like a swimmer coming up for air. But his eyes glowed with yellow fire. "I remember," he finally whispered. "Over all those years. Meredith, from the Institute. And the gypsy girl, Maya. And Francoise, whose mother was a slave on the Mississippi. Little Cicely, who fell from her horse and died on the day we were to wed. And… Elllie."

He looked at the old man in wonderment. "How many others? How many times have I been here? How many have there been?"

Behind Nick, a small wind had risen. Leaves skittered from its path as it moved across the cemetery. The man looked over Nick's shoulder and smiled, and his face seemed transformed.

"Only one, my son," he said softly, pointing. "There was only ever one."

-OOO-

" _You ready?" he said. The heat from the fire was almost unbearable now. She nodded, drawing her little .38. A ladies' gun; brand new, never fired, with the front sight and hammer filed down so it wouldn't get snagged coming out of a purse or a pocket. He'd bought it for her on their first date. He kissed her, then took her other hand. Together, they sprang to the ledge and with guns blazing launched themselves at the mob below._

 _-OOO-_


	21. Afterword

**Afterword:**

Selected excerpts from Marten, Nicholas J. _"A Hundred Years After": The Commonwealth since the Fall of the Institute, 2288-2388_ (Cambridge University Press, 2388).

THE FALL OF FORT APACHE:[1]

It has been nearly sixty years since the Fort Apache bunker fell to Commonwealth forces on May 11, 2330.

Built during the Russo-American "Cold War" of the mid-20th century as a retreat for the US government in the case of nuclear attack, it was occupied for a time by refugees fleeing the devastation of war in 2077 but had been abandoned and lost for nearly 200 years by the time the Purlaine discovered and re-fortified it in the late 2320s.

Of particular concern to Commonwealth forces in the lead-up to the assault was the presence of atomic warheads in the bunker, said to be aimed at targets along the American seaboard as part of a last-ditch, Cold War-era plan to destroy the country in case of a successful invasion. Although the status of the missiles was not known going into the bunker, it turned out that the Purlaine were indeed in possession of the necessary launch codes. The missile complex was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the battle, including in the silos themselves, where the last of the defenders attempted to key in the codes manually after losing the control rooms.

Ironically, while the missile control systems showed them to be fully operational (and in fact reported the manual launches as having been successful, to the horror of the Commonwealth forces watching the screens in the control room) the missiles themselves had actually been secretly disabled by the technicians responsible for maintaining them almost three centuries before.

An equally important objective of the attack was to rescue the captives – almost exclusively women and children – known to be held by the Purlaine. In this, they were only partially successful. Nevertheless, a mass slaughter of captives was averted, thanks mostly to the efforts of the women prisoners, a group of whom swarmed their guards the moment the attack began. Although most of these were killed, the rest were able to secure the prison compound and hold it until help arrived.

The first Commonwealth soldiers to storm the breach created when Nick Valentine triggered his micro-nuke were the re-formed Gunners, men who had settled secretly in the Commonwealth after their defeat at Quincy in 2309. Enraged by evidence of the atrocities committed by the Purlaine on their captives, they and the Minutemen who followed happily obliged the defenders' desire to fight to the death. Rumours persisted, however, that forces of the Warlord Clans took prisoners and summarily executed them. But the source of the rumours could not be determined and an investigation failed to confirm or deny them. Whatever the circumstances, none of the Purlaine who were at Apache that day ever returned home to Quebec.

THE NEW ARYAN CONFEDERACY:

Although it certainly didn't appear that way at the time, the invasion launched in 2329 by the New Aryan Confederacy (the so-called "Purlaine War", 2329-2331) was already failing by the time of the fall of Fort Apache. A number of factors played a role in this, but chief among them were internal tensions within the confederacy itself, an inevitable consequence of its anachronistic, white-supremacist ideology.

Although the "Pur Laine" themselves (the purebred, supposed "old stock" French Canadian families, from a phrase meaning "pure wool") were among the wealthiest and most powerful of the familes in the Laurentian area of the old Canadian province of Quebec, by 2330 they numbered no more than a few thousands in total population. That being the case, an explicitly white-supremacist ideology was always going to be a hard sell in areas as ethnically mixed as the Gaspé Peninsula and the Montreal-Quebec City Corridor. That being the case, it's a mystery why the Purlaine would have chosen to fight under such a self-defeating banner. Some scholars have suggested that the inbreeding necessary to maintain their racial purity had caused genetic defects – madness, to put it bluntly – among their ranks. In any case, it should have come to no surprise to anybody how quickly these fault lines opened up when the invasion began to falter after the defeat at Fort Apache. Indeed, with the clarity of hindsight, it's obvious that even had the combined Minutemen / Gunner / Clan force under Howard failed to take the bunker, the invasion could not have survived the serious resistance that was sure to follow as it pushed more deeply into the Commonwealth. Lightning raids, such as the one on Diamond City were one thing. The appearance of a full-on invasion force would have alerted the country on all sides, and triggered a massive response.

There is, however, no telling what damage the invaders might have caused or whether a future confederacy, unhampered by neo-Nazi foolishness and emboldened by the near success of the previous one, might have launched a new and perhaps ultimately successful attack. As it was, as the cracks widened, old hatreds re-appeared and the Confederacy turned on itself. The hegemony of the Purlaine Families was broken. Today, while residual strands of misogyny and racial supremacy still taint some elements of the culture there, the near-complete annihilation of the Purlaine in the ensuing civil war completely changed the political landscape in Quebec, leading to our current state of wary, but generally friendly, co-existence.

Some historians [2] have argued that the slaughter of Purlaine supporters during the fall of Fort Apache was a critical factor in the failure of the movement. There is no doubt this helped blunt the influence of that group on the wider Confederacy, although we would argue as above that the continuing strains that a long and drawn-out conflict would have placed on the Confederacy would eventually have had the same effect.

THE POST-WAR COMMONWEALTH:

The attack by the Purlaine Confederacy showed up one serious weakness suffered by the Commonwealth: the lack of a cohesive, central government. At the time of the Purlaine invasion, the Commonwealth consisted of a number of independent, self-governed, settlements of various sizes with the determinedly apolitical Minutemen as its only common institution.

This made the Commonwealth vulnerable to attack by anyone capable of rounding up a decent-sized force. Had the Warlord Clans, for example, ever managed to get past their mutual distrust and unite under a sufficiently capable and charismatic leader, they could in all probability have subjugated the Commonwealth entirely. It is a testament to the genius of Nate Howard that he was able to play off the clans against each other for so many years, ensuring they never arose as a viable threat.

Ironically, it was the Minutemen themselves who posed the greatest threat to the Commonwealth. "Power," as Nick Valentine once noted, "gets to be a habit after a while". Shortly after the end of the Purlaine War, a group of senior officers staged a coup d'etat, imprisoning Howard on charges of treason and declaring the "Democratic Republic of New England", with free elections, if and when. Howard, however, had been given ample warning (it is said by prostitutes in the employ of Maude Kelly, to whom the officers had unwisely confided) and had made his plans accordingly. The coup fizzled, the rank-and-file remained loyal, and the leaders were arrested and exiled.

The episode awakened the various civilian authorities of the Commonwealth to their danger, however, and at the Constitutional Convention of 2333, the Settlement Council was created and work begun on laying out the founding principles of a new nation, the present-day Commonwealth of New England States, or simply "the Commonwealth".

NATHANIEL A. HOWARD:

Much has been written about Nate Howard, the "Sole Survivor", as some call him, of Vault 111, who almost single-handedly re-established the Minutemen during the Institute War (2287-2288) and led them for nearly 60 years. His contributions to the Commonwealth cannot be understated. Interested readers are directed to _Man Out of Time_ (Cambridge University Press, 7th edition, 2351) _,_ the multi-volume biography written by his adopted son, Dr. Shaun Howard, Rector of Cambridge University. Other, more popular and possibly more accessible works also abound.

Nothing is known, however, as to his ultimate fate. A widower for more than 30 years after the death of his wife, Piper Howard (neé Wright) in 2312, Howard was deeply affected by the death of his oldest friend, Nick Valentine, who sacrificed himself to open the breach at Fort Apache. Shortly after the Purlaine threat was disposed of, Howard went into seclusion at his home in the old Red Rocket station near Sanctuary Hills (now maintained as a museum).

With the help of "Madame Curie", a robot intelligence whose consciousness had been transferred to a humano-synth body by Dr. Helen Amari of Goodneighbour during the Institute War, Howard had been trying unsuccessfully to write his memoirs.[3] A letter, found on his desk after his disappearance in 2346 hints at his final fate.[4] Interestingly, Mme. Curie resigned her teaching post at Diamond City Collegiate Institute at about the same time, and also vanished.

Although there have been many unconfirmed sightings of both Howard and Curie in the years since (both together and separately, some reportedly from as far as way as the Mojave Desert) no trace of either one has ever been found. It is likely their ultimate fates will remain a mystery.

MAUDE KELLY:

Like General Howard, Maude "Mother" Kelly, a pre-War ghoul who operated a brothel in Carlisle Station during the Purlaine War, was deeply affected by the death of Nick Valentine, whom she had known in his human incarnation as a Boston police officer just after the Great War.[5] In 2334, she handed the keys to her business to her staff and simply walked away.

Kelly turned up again several years later at Fort Hancock (the erstwhile Fort Apache, now garrisoned as a forward base by the Minutemen), where she served for a time as a medic before disappearing again, this time re-surfacing in Diamond City, where she became Assistant (later Chief) Curator at the Diamond City Archives, a position she held from 2347-2385.

The last known surviving pre-War ghoul, her memories of life in the Commonwealth at the time of the Great War and especially in the immediate aftermath thereof have been a gold mine to historians. Sadly, at the time of this writing (2388) she has fallen more and more deeply into the somnolescent state that eventually affects these longest-surviving ghouls, and while she may yet rouse herself again, it seems unlikely. At nearly 330 years of age, Maude Kelly is rightly considered a national treasure for her memories and for her service to the Commonwealth, and her passing will be hard on those of us who have studied under her and worked with her over the years.

FRANK BAIRD:

Frank Baird of Baird's New Horizon Trading Co., out of New Bangor, Maine (the erstwhile Francois Bayard, who anglicized his name when he left the Gasp _é_ ) was devastated when news reached him of the death of his son and only child, Garry Baird (aka Garrick Bayard). He eventually located and retrieved his son's body, returning it to Maine for burial. In 2335, Baird returned secretly to the Gaspé, and for several weeks that fall and winter operated as a one-man guerrilla invasion force in the area around the village of Rimouski, committing murder and arson as the opportunity permitted.

He was eventually captured alive by the Gaspésie. His ultimate fate is unknown. In the Gaspé, they do not speak of it to outsiders.

LILY MARTEN:

Eleanor Lillian Marten survived the attack on Fort Apache and received accolades for the critical role she played in the battle. A few weeks later, she once again presented herself to the Minuteman recruiting station at Fort Carlisle. Her application was again rejected, this time when a routine medical examination showed her to be in the early stages of pregnancy – the product of her rape by Garrick Bayard.

Returning to Diamond City, she made the difficult decision not to terminate the pregnancy. After the baby was born, she returned to school, graduating in 2336 with a Certificate in Education from Diamond City College. She never married. For the next 40 years, until her death in 2377, she taught Science, Mathematics and French at Piper Wright Elementary School in Diamond City.

Like good teachers everywhere, "Miss Lily" gave us much more than what was in our textbooks. To the students who passed beneath her watchful eye she gave the gifts of passion and joy, of empathy and understanding, of confidence and humility. She taught us to seek the truth in all things and to confront the darkness wherever we found it. She was ferocious and kind and demanding and patient. She helped to make us human, and this is why I am proud to say that this beautiful woman was not only my teacher and mentor and friend, but also my mother.

Nicholas J. Marten, PhD., Professor of History

Cambridge University

June 19, 2388

NOTES:

1\. Pronounced "Apazj", from a 19th century slang term for Parisian street gangs, suggesting that someone within the Purlaine leadership had a sense of humour. Or at least, of history.

2\. See, for example, Mahendra _et al_ , "People of the Knife", in the _New Journal of New England History_ , Vol 35, pp. 16-43.

3\. His unfinished manuscript along with the memoirs of Nick Valentine, the personal recollections of Maude Kelly and the record collections held by the Diamond City Archives, form the backbone of what is known about day-to-day life and factional politics in the Commonwealth at the time of the Institute War.

4, Letter, Nate Howard to Shaun Howard, 22 October, 2045, Howard Papers, Diamond City Archives, MSS-32-07-1001, Vol 12). See also "Ghosts", _Lives and Letters: Voices of the Commonwealth_ , Maude Kelly and N. Marten, eds., (Goodneighbour: South Boston Publishing Co., 2375) pp. 201-213.

5\. For a detailed explanation, see Nick Valentine and Jeannette Tandy _,_ 2336, _The Beautiful Heart: Case Files of Nick Valentine, Private Detective_ , 3rd edn, revised by N. Marten, Cambridge University Press, 2379.

-OOO-

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Well I'll be damned. It turned out to be a love story after all.

If you've read this far, thank you. I've certainly enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading it. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has commented on the story, in particular Alexeij and Scrimshawpen, whose work in the Fallout universe is unparalleled an whose thoughtful comments have helped guide me in the development of this story. If you are a Fallout fan (particularly pre-Fallout 4) and haven't read their work already, you should go there now.

Finally - if you finished this story confused as to what happened, I really need to hear from you. The challenge in this story is making sure that the ending, when it appears, causes an "Aha!" moment for the reader. So if instead you're left with a "Huh?" moment, I need to know so I can revise accordingly.

Either way, I do appreciate if you don't leave spoilers in the comments; please PM me instead.


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